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‘Cut out “into little stars”’ Shakespeare in Anthologies
Isherwood, Anne
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Download date: 07. Oct. 2021 This electronic theses or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/
Title: ‘Cut out “into little stars”’ Shakespeare in Anthologies
Author: Anne Isherwood
The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement.
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‘Cut out “into little stars”’: Shakespeare in Anthologies
Anne Christine Isherwood
PhD
Dedicated to the memory of my mother Joyce Matthews, 1925-2006.
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His bright wit is cut out “into little stars”; his solid masses of knowledge are meted out in morsels and proverbs; and thus distributed, there is scarcely a corner which he does not illuminate, or a cottage that he does not enrich.
Preface to The Wisdom and Genius of Shakspeare (1838).
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ABSTRACT
This thesis argues that, as well as collecting extracts from Shakespeare, anthologists also create Shakespeares.
Extracts from Shakespeare’s texts have been included in printed anthologies since the end of the sixteenth century, yet a comprehensive study of this significant means of disseminating Shakespeare and its influence on what we understand by Shakespeare has not been undertaken. In filling this gap I argue that anthologies have been and are important disseminators of Shakespeare. In this way anthologists have contributed to the creation of the icon we now call ‘Shakespeare’ by creating their own independent Shakespeares. These anthologists’ Shakespeares might reflect what was understood by Shakespeare at any time or stand in opposition to it. Thus this thesis extends the work of previous critical studies that have argued that each age and culture appropriates and reinvents its own Shakespeare.
I examine the Shakespeare texts included in anthologies that collect from many writers and also those that collect exclusively from Shakespeare.
Anthologists create Shakespeares because an anthology is more than just a collection of texts; it reflects its compiler’s ideas and preoccupations through the work that s/he adds to the collected texts. I regard the anthologist as a kind of author and by considering the anthologist’s work - their choices, textual manipulation and paratexts - I discover the Shakespeare that the anthologist creates. Although this thesis is mainly concerned with printed anthologies, I define anthology widely to include texts and formats that may not have previously been considered to be anthologies.
Whereas previous studies of anthologies including Shakespeare’s texts have restricted themselves to particular examples or time periods, this thesis offers a diachronic study of the dissemination of Shakespeare by anthologies from Shakespeare’s lifetime through to the present day. This allows the opportunity to reveal the similarities and differences in the Shakespeare created by anthologists at different times – and finds remarkably consistent Shakespeares.
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References Act, scene and line references to Shakespeare’s plays are taken from The Oxford Shakespeare The Complete Works, 2nd edition (Oxford: OUP/Clarendon, 2005).
References from King Lear are from The Tragedy of King Lear unless otherwise indicated.
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CONTENTS
Abstract 4 Note on References 5 Contents 6
Introduction 10
1. One of our ‘Moderne poets’: Shakespeare in Anthologies during his lifetime
I. Introduction 26 II. The Passionate Pilgrim, 1599 27 III. Belvedere, Englands Parnassus and Englands Helicon, 1600 41 IV. Loves Martyr, 1601 58 V. Conclusion 69
2. Pieces of Plays, Extractions and Poems: Shakespeare in Anthologies 1616 - 1700
I. Introduction 70 II. ‘Humours and Pieces of plays’: The Wits, or Sport upon Sport, 1662-1673 73 III. The English Treasury of Wit and Language, 1655 81 IV. Poems: written by Wil. Shake-speare, Gent., 1640 88 V. Conclusion 100
3. Anthologising ‘the King of English Poets’ in the Eighteenth Century
I. Introduction 101 II. Early and mid-eighteenth-century anthologies that extract from Shakespeare 107 and other writers
III. ‘Miscellaneous pieces’: later eighteenth-century anthologies that extract from Shakespeare and other writers 118
IV. Anthologies for Spouters 121 V. Eighteenth-century Shakespeare anthologies 122 VI. Other eighteenth-century collections that come close to being anthologies 138 V. Conclusion 140
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4. ‘Those poems and songs with which everyone ought to be acquainted’: Shakespeare in nineteenth-century anthologies
I. Introduction 144 II. The Golden Treasury, its predecessor and followers 149 III. Early nineteenth-century anthologies 159 IV. Mid-century anthologies 161 V. Anthologies from the end of the century 166 VI. Anthologies for Children 170 VII. Summary nineteenth-century anthologies collecting from many poets 173 VIII. Nineteenth-century Shakespeare anthologies 175 IX. Shakespeare the moral philosopher and secular scripture 186 X. Conclusion 196
5. ‘A sort of miscellany with a purpose’: Anthologies using Shakespeare in the Twentieth Century
I. The Oxford Book of English Verse 199 II. Wartime Anthologies 208 III. Shakespeare Anthologies in Performance 236 IV. Prince’s and Poet’s Choices 242 V. Conclusion 263
Conclusion 264
ILLUSTRATIONS
Fig. 1 Title-page O2 The Passionate Pilgrime, 1599 33 Fig. 2 Extract from John of Gaunt’s speech from Richard II in Englands Parnassus 54 Fig. 3 Frontispiece and title-page The Wits, or Sport upon Sport, 1662 74 Fig. 4 Frontispiece Poems: written by Wil. Shake-speare, Gent. 96 Fig.5 ‘Witch’ from The Art of English Poetry, 1718 112 Fig. 5 Dust jacket The Prince’s Choice 245
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APPENDICES 1. The Passionate Pilgrim 269 2. Belvedere 275 3. Englands Parnassus 277 4. Englands Helicon 293 5. Loves Martyr 296 6. Shakespeare in Print 1616-1700 302 7. The Wits, or Sport upon Sport 303 8. The English Treasury of Wit and Language 307 9. Hesperides, or the Muses Garden 335 10. Poems: written by Wil. Shakes-speare, Gent. 337 11. A bibliography of eighteenth-century anthologies that include Shakespeare’s texts 343 12.Edward Bysshe’s The Art of English Poetry 345 13.The extracts from A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Gildon’s Shakespeariana and Dodd’s The Beauties of Shakespear 357 14. Kearsley’s The Beauties of Shakespeare 361 15. I. The Speaker 361 II. Beauties of Eminent Writers. 364 16. Beauties of the English Stage; or the dramatic companion 365 17. I. A bibliography of nineteenth-century anthologies taking from many writers 366 II. A bibliography of nineteenth-century anthologies taking only from Shakespeare 367
18. The Golden Treasury 372 19. I. Nightingale Valley 374 II.The Golden Pomp 374 20. Specimens of the Early English Poets 377 21. The Beauties of the British Poets 378 22. A Thousand and One Gems of English Poetry 379 23. Gleanings from the English Poets, Chaucer to Tennyson 385 24. Chambers Cyclopedia of English Literature 386 25. A Paradise of English Poetry 389 26. The Shakespeare Anthology 392 27. Poet’s Corner 394
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28. The Children’s Treasury of Lyrical Poetry and The Children’s Garland from the Best Poets 395
29. Songs and Sonnets by William Shakespeare 396 30. Pearls of Shakespeare 399 31. Choice Thoughts from Shakspere 401 32. Shakespeare Proverbs 405 33. Birthday Chimes from Shakespeare 406 34. Shakespeare Tercentenary Pocket Almanack. 410 35. The Wisdom and Genius of Shakspeare 411 36. The Oxford Book of English Verse. 413 37. This England. 419 38. The Spirit of Man. 420 39. Word from England. 423 40. The Times Broadsheets for Soldier and Sailors. 425 41. Soundings. 431 42. Transcript of the Programme for William the Conqueror in Stratford-upon -Avon, August 1981 435 43. Transcript of the Programme for ‘Shakespeare Tercentenary Celebration’, in Calais, May 1916 441 44. This Sceptred Isle 444 45. The Prince’s Choice 445 46. A Choice of Shakespeare’s Verse 458
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
I. Anthologies 462 II. Secondary Sources 474 III. Editions of Shakespeare 487
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Introduction
We have today a cultural icon we call ‘Shakespeare’: a monumental entity encompassing the man, his life, his image, his texts and their appropriations and afterlife. Anthologies have contributed to the establishment of this icon but their influence has been undervalued. This thesis seeks to redress that neglect. It demonstrates that textual fragments from Shakespeare’s plays and poems have been included in anthologies since the end of the sixteenth century and argues that anthologists not only collected his texts but also created different and distinct ‘Shakespeares’. This is because anthologies are more than just collections of discrete texts; they reflect the ideas and preoccupations of their anthologists and also contain their ‘work’. The Shakespeares anthologies created have contributed to the establishment of the icon Shakespeare but have also existed separately and independently. Despite the consistent and persistent inclusion of extracts from Shakespeare’s texts in countless printed anthologies, there has been little interest in the Shakespeares anthologists have created. This thesis identifies the anthologists’ Shakespeares and assesses their part in what we understand by Shakespeare. That each age and culture appropriates and re-invents its own Shakespeare has become a critical commonplace.1 Terence Hawkes argues that Shakespeare’s plays (and, I would add, poems) have no essential meaning but function as a resource by which we generate meaning, because they are ‘primarily texts, […] constituted not only by an author but also by the interpretive strategies of readers and the material and political and social pressures of the historical contexts helping to shape those strategies’.2 This thesis builds on these critical premises to discover how the Shakespeares anthologists have created relate to the predominant Shakespeare of their age and whether these anthologists’ Shakespeares have remained consistent or have changed over time. The Shakespeare of any era results from a number of cultural events, not just performances of his plays or the reading of his texts but also adaptations and critical responses to them including the use of his texts in anthologies – the focus of this
1 See Gary Taylor, Re-inventing Shakespeare (London: Hogarth, 1990), Michael Dobson, The Making of the National Poet (Oxford: OUP, 1992), Margreta de Grazia, Shakespeare Verbatim (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991). 2 Terence Hawkes, Meaning by Shakespeare (London; New York: Routledge, 1992), 146. 10 thesis. I will suggest that Shakespeare’s texts were often as readily available to readers in anthologies as in other formats and that the part anthologies have played in the dissemination of Shakespeare has also been undervalued. Previous studies have generally concentrated on single anthologies or on anthologies from one period, which risks arriving at conclusions that a wider study might qualify. This thesis offers a diachronic study of Shakespeare in anthologies, allowing the opportunity to discover similarities and differences in the Shakespeare created by anthologies from different periods. I argue that every anthologist is a kind of author and whenever he creates an anthology using Shakespeare’s texts he creates a Shakespeare.3 I explain first what I understand by an anthology, an anthologist and the work of an anthologist. I then outline previous scholarship on anthologies that my thesis builds on and extends, in particular studies that regard the anthologist as an author, that consider the anthologist’s input and that regard the anthology as a distinct form. Finally I outline my methodology.
I
Defining an anthology is not straightforward. The Oxford English Dictionary indicates that an anthology is ‘a published collection of passages from literature (esp. poems), songs, reproductions of paintings etc.’4 It also indicates that the word is derived from the Greek anthologia, meaning ‘flower gathering’. Michael Rosen defines anthology as ‘traditionally’ meaning ‘a collection of poems by a variety of poets’ to distinguish it from an individual poet’s collected, selected or complete poems.5 ‘Anthology’ was first used for the title of a collection of poems in English in 1793 in Ritson’s The English Anthology,6 but the term is widely and loosely applied. It has described things as varied as an exhibition of hats and, collectively, a TV documentary, CDs and a book charting the history of The Beatles.7 In cinema an anthology film is a feature length film comprised of several short films linked by
3 I use the masculine pronoun to include the feminine throughout – women anthologists are a small, but latterly increasing minority. 4
8 An anthology film that is the work of one team is Grand Hotel, dir. Edmund Goulding, 1932; an example with separately written and directed components is New York Stories, dir. Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen, 1989. 9 In her paper ‘”The Foule Sheet and yᵉ Fayr”: Shakespeare and Manuscripts’ at the English Literary Manuscripts Conference at SAS, University of London on 29th July 2011, Grace Ioppolo suggested that a reason why seventeenth-century manuscript anthology compilers used Shakespeare texts was grounded in a desire ‘to feel a proprietary sense of collaboration with Shakespeare’. 12 use long poems or extracts from them and whether to isolate individual poems from their context when they are part of a poetic sequence. Having selected a poem the anthologist then ‘supplants the author of the poem in choosing how it should be presented with interpretive consequences’.10 The anthologist’s work then involves determining how the poems are ordered, grouped and arranged on the page, any title that a poem might have, whether and how the poems are attributed and whether there should be any ‘unauthorized revision’,11 that is, whether to make any changes to wording or punctuation, whether these should be modernised and, when there is more than one version of a poem, which version to use. The anthologist’s work also includes the paratexts that he adds: textual items like the anthology’s title, dedications, prefaces, indexes, notes and glossaries, pagination, and whether there are any illustrations or decoration on the pages, typography as well as material considerations like paper quality, format, size, dustcovers and bindings.
II In his introduction to a collection of essays about anthologies Jeffrey Di Leo comments: the bibliography of works on anthologies is scattered and piecemeal. Anthologies are most frequently the objects of scholarly comment either merely in passing or as a sub- species of a more fundamental topic (e.g., book publishing, college teaching, the canon wars or the nature of discourse.12
Apart from Leah Price’s The Anthology and the Rise of the Novel (2000) and Anne Ferry’s Tradition and the Individual Poem (2001),13 two pioneering books that Di Leo applauds, there is a surprising lack of writing about anthologies as anthologies, as ‘a distinct physical and conceptual format’.14 Most studies have followed the paths Di Leo describes or have concentrated on specific anthologies evaluating their content and/or contributors, their political stance, their part in literary history or the book trade or the history of reading.15
10 Anne Ferry, Tradition and the Individual Poem (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 2. 11 Robert Graves and Laura Riding, A Pamphlet Against Anthologies (London: Jonathan Cape, 1928), 56. 12 Jeffrey R. Di Leo, ‘Analyzing Anthologies’ in On Anthologies. Politics and Pedagogy, ed. Jeffrey R. Di Leo (Lincoln NE; London: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), 1- 27, 7. 13 Leah Price, The Anthology and the Rise of the Novel (Cambridge: CUP, 2000). 14 Michelle O’Callaghan, ‘Textual Gatherings: Print, Community and Verse Miscellanies in Early Modern England’, Early Modern Culture at
Underpinning the study of the anthology as a distinct form are the ideas of critics like Roger Chartier and D.F. McKenzie, who emphasise the significance of the material form in which texts are presented. Texts are not deposited in books, whether hand written or printed, as if in a mere recipient. Readers only encounter texts within an object whose forms and layout guide and compel the production of meaning.16
Equally important is Gerard Genette’s work on paratexts, the liminal devices and conventions, both within the book and outside it, that mediate the book to the reader: titles and subtitles, pseudonyms, forewords, dedications, epigraphs, prefaces, intertitles, notes, epilogues, and afterwords. Paratexts also include elements in the public and private history of the book: ‘public epitexts’ like interviews or statements given by the author or publishers and ‘private epitexts’ like authorial correspondence, oral confidences, diaries, and pre-texts.17 Price’s study is primarily concerned with the interplay between anthologies and the novel from the mid-eighteenth to the late-nineteenth century and the effect anthologies had on reading practices and generic conventions, but she also offers constructive comment on anthologies as anthologies. Price characterises the anthologist as [t]he middleman who excerpts and cuts across the divisions of labour that make it possible to understand texts, or even to catalogue them: writer and reader, writer and critic, writer and publisher, writer and censor.18
She argues for the study of anthologies as a genre:
[…]the anthology violates modern readers’ expectation that the material unit (the book) should coincide with a verbal unit (the text). As a result, the anthologies which provide a vehicle for literary history have rarely become its object […]. Although the canon wars have drawn attention to the power of anthologists to shape national identity, a criticism which reduces anthologies to their evaluative function can do little more than catalogue binary oppositions: including or excluding particular texts, over or under- representing a given category of authors, acknowledging or ignoring new writing. Anthologies are more than a referendum. They determine not simply who gets published or what gets read, but who reads and how.19
16 Roger Chartier, Frenchness and the History of the Book: From the History of Publishing to the History of Reading (Worcester MA: American Antiquarian Society, 1988), 13. See also D.F. McKenzie, ‘The Book as Expressive Form’ in Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (London: The British Library, 1986), 1-21. 17 Gerard Genette, Paratexts. Thresholds of Interpretation, translated by Jane E. Lewin (Cambridge: CUP, 1997). 18 Price, 2. 19 Ibid., 3. 14
Price is interested in the anthology’s effect on reading practices, in facilitating both intensive and extensive reading: ‘The anthology trained readers to pace themselves through an unmanageable bulk of print by sensing when to skip and when to linger’.20 She suggests that such stop and start reading made possible new genres like the gothic novel (its prose narrative punctuated by verse epigraphs), the life-and- letters biography (with narrative framing excerpts from letters) and the tourist guidebook which by the 1830s interspersed travel guidance with snatches of poetry for recitation at scenic stopping places. Price is aware of the work of the anthologist, commenting that the ‘paratextual apparatus (titles, prefaces, tables of contents, footnotes) [is] where the anthologist becomes a writer’.21 Price is concerned with anthologies that excerpt novels but her remarks on the anthologist’s work of selection applies equally to poetry and Shakespeare anthologies: The novel makes visible the anthology’s own cult of the anomaly. An anthology-piece is not a random sample any more than an abridgement is a scale model. The anthology’s ambition to represent a whole through its parts is always undermined by readers’ awareness that the parts have been chosen for their difference from those left out.22
In Chapter 2, ‘Cultures of the Commonplace’, Price considers late eighteenth-century anthologies, in particular Knox’s Elegant Extracts (1784) and Enfield’s The Speaker (1774), and their use of Shakespeare’s texts. Price argues that the ending of perpetual copyright in 1774 changed how the anthology form could be used, enabling literary history to become the anthologist’s work, the nature of that work shifting so that the anthologist represented a community of readers and chose what was generally acknowledged to be the best or what was popular instead of expressing himself.23 A full-scale study of anthologies as a form is outside Price’s scope but Anne Ferry’s Tradition and the Individual Poem provides this in relation to anthologies of poetry. She excludes several categories from her study: ‘quasi-political’ anthologies like collections of gay, black or women’s poetry; anthologies devoted to other kinds of concentrations, for example love poems or poems for children; and, ‘popular’
20 Ibid., 4. 21 Ibid.,10/11. 22 Ibid., 6/7 23 Ibid., 67. The decision in Donaldson v Beckett (1774) removed the publisher’s perpetual ownership of back catalogue material freeing it for use in anthologies. 15 anthologies, in the sense of appealing to the broadest segment of the poetry reading public, including people who may not think of themselves as poetry readers. Ferry examines in what conceptual and practical ways anthologies differ from other collections of poetry and regards anthologists as a species of author. Distinguishing anthologies from other kinds of poetry books, she writes An anthology is peculiar […] both distinctive and odd [because] the choices about the book’s content, except those that went into the making of the poems, are decisions of someone whose aim is to make something of a very different kind: a selection of several or many poets’ work, decided and arranged on principles and using materials different from what would be found in a book of poems by only one author. 24
She demonstrates how the role and presence of the anthologist can give a different direction to the experience of reading a poem. Ferry’s study considers anthologies ‘as a kind’ and examines the features that all anthologies share that set them apart from other kinds of poetry collections. She considers the ways in which anthologies are arranged and how this arrangement and the devices for presenting the poems, such as titling, revision of their form and language and the anthologist’s paratextual material exercises authority over readers.25 Ferry also discusses what makes an ‘anthology piece’, and how anthologies and their increasing role as a primary source of poetry has intersected with the history of poetry and the history of criticism. In particular she argues that anthologies have since Tottel promoted short or lyric poems so effectively that this form has become ‘virtually synonymous with poetry’.26 Ferry considers the ways in which poets have appropriated the power of anthologies to influence the course of poetry and criticism, offering Dryden and Gascoigne as examples of poet-anthologists creating anthologies to showcase work of their own and of congenial contemporaries. She also cites Yeats and Larkin for using, respectively, their Oxford Book of Modern Verse 1892-1935 (1936) and Oxford Book of Twentieth Century Verse (1973), to create retrospective anthologies that reshaped literary history to suit their sense of where their work belonged in it. Above all Ferry is aware of the significance of the anthologist and that ‘the
24 Ferry 2001, 2. 25 In an earlier study Ferry had observed the significance of the titles given (or not given) to poems and their relevance to the reception of particular poems and to the work of the anthologist. Anne Ferry, The Title to the Poem (Stanford CA: Stanford UP, 1996). 26 Ferry2001, 4. 16 anthology is the work of a unique kind of maker, whose presence is felt, inescapably, only in this kind of book’.27 Other studies of anthologies are frequently limited to arguments that they are a useful or a bad thing. A notable example of the latter remains Robert Graves and Laura Riding’s A Pamphlet Against Anthologies (1928) which covers most of the objections to anthologies.28 As poets they object to anthologists interposing themselves between the poet/poem and the reader and describe anthologies as ‘the second-hand clothes shop of poetry’. Although they distinguish ‘trade’ and ‘true’ anthologies, their definitions are antithetical. ‘True’ anthologies comprise non- professional and non-purposive collections and ‘rescue anthologies’ that collect poems that might otherwise be lost, in other words any anthology ‘that is in no way likely to become a popular trade anthology since the general public asks from anthologies neither unauthoritative examples of private taste, nor historical material in the raw’ . ‘Trade’ anthologies, of which the ‘most offensive is the modern publisher’s anthology that treats poetry as a commodity’ might collect poems by subject, period or verse form, or be ‘competitive’ as in ‘The Hundred Best…’, or be targeted at a particular public such as children or schools. Graves and Riding consider such anthologies the ‘mere wanton rearrangement of poetry that has its proper place elsewhere, or nowhere at all’.29 ‘Private’ anthologies, ‘the nearest a person who is not a poet can get to writing poetry’, are permissible as long as they remain private. They suggest that even an honest private anthology loses its appeal when published because, [t]he poems have become part of the anthologist and have lost their original context. This does not harm the anthologist but makes him a bar between the readers of the anthology and the poems preventing ‘a direct introduction to the poem by the poet himself, who alone has the right to give it’. 30 They add, No matter in what good faith a private anthology is made, it becomes when published, an organized theft of the signatures of the original poets, for it is the whole intention of the private anthology to make included poems the anthologist’s own.31
27 Ibid., 13. 28 Graves and Riding. 29 Ibid., 14, 25, 28. 30 Ibid., 35. 31 Ibid., 35. 17
This also affects the reader:
for one person to accept another’s taste deprives the former of self-respect. Our charge against anthologies is, then, that they have robbed the poetry- reading public of self-respect.32
They are conscious of potential damage to repeatedly anthologised poems: their ‘slow spiritual breakdown’ that arises when anthologies are arranged alphabetically or chronologically by poet with the danger of the same poems running up against one another and becoming entangled in the reader’s mind.33 In their opinion the readers of anthologies are not true readers: The popular anthology indeed is composed not for readers, but like the popular novel, for skimmers: the public’s interest is not in reading, merely in seeing who is in it, what the titles are like, what look the poems have.34
Three-quarters of a century later journalist Robert Potts took aim against popular anthologies very much in the spirit of Graves and Riding, complaining that such anthologies offer a ‘pre-filtered selection […] most often a pick-and-mix counter of the more easily swallowed contemporary poems with some traditional flavours and favourites’ the contents characterised as ‘poetry for people who don’t know much about poetry’.35 Barbara Korte’s introduction to Anthologies of British Poetry summarises the issues raised by anthologies as a form of publication.36 She outlines the importance of anthologies in preserving and disseminating poetry, their power to shape conceptions of what poetry is, their role in canon formation, objections to them, the range of types of anthology, historical shifts in the practices and purposes of anthologising and the reception of anthologies. The essays in Anthologies of British Poetry cover many of the areas Korte summarises but all concern themselves with
32 Ibid., 36 33 Ibid., 83. 34 Ibid., 188. 35 Robert Potts, ‘Concentration, not Consolation’, The Guardian, Review, 24 April 2004, 25. Anthologist Neil Astley’s lecture responding to this article at the 2005 StAnza Scottish Poetry Festival ‘Bile, Guile and Dangerous to Poetry is at
Korte notes the various possibilities for arranging the poems and how different arrangements lead to different interpretations, commenting [e]ven where the compositional principle at first seems relatively weak, as in the case of alphabetical or chronological sequences, such a sequence will affect the reading of each individual text. A chronological sequence, for instance, might invite a reading with special attention to a poem’s place in literary history.38
She notes the impact of arrangement, ‘another criterion of the anthology as a distinct form of publication: the contextualization or recontextualization of the individual assembled texts’. Each poem in an anthology has been de-contextualized (a flower picked from its native bed) and is successively re-contextualized and re- perspectivized, provided with a new semantic environment and thus new possibilities of reading the poem.39
Korte expands on the work of Neil Fraistat who concentrated on collections of poems by individual poets rather than anthologies, but whose ideas are applicable to anthologies. In The Poem and the Book Fraistat draws attention to strategies used by early-nineteenth-century poets to shape collections of their poems.40 These ideas were explored by Fraistat and others in Poems in their Place.41 Fraistat’s basic premises are that ‘the book […] is the meeting ground for poet and reader’ and that ‘the book is constantly conditioning the reader’s responses’.42 He proposes that the poetry book – as both idea and material fact – should be an object of interpretation since the decisions poets make about the presentation of their work play a meaningful role in the poetic process. He also suggests that interpretations of a book should not be limited to the author’s conscious intentions. Thus Fraistat argues for
37 Ibid.,18. 38 Ibid.,18. 39 Ibid.,19. 40 Neil Fraistat, The Poem and the Book (Chapel Hill NC; London: University of North Carolina Press, 1985). 41 Neil Fraistat, ed., Poems in their Place (Chapel Hill NC; London: University of North Carolina Press,1986). 42 Ibid., 3. 19 studying poems within the context of their original volumes, for finding significance in selection and arrangement within particular books and in material details such as format, typography and illustrations. He also suggests considering what is not in the book that might have been. Fraistat draws attention to the strong formal unity achieved when poems are organized to follow logically or chronologically from one another: presenting a narrative, advancing an argument or appearing in some form of serial arrangement. He argues that readers gather information about the cohesiveness of a book not only through explicit prefatory material or cues such as titles and epigraphs but also from a ‘growing awareness of formal or thematic repetitions, contrasts and progressions among the poems which applies whether the book is read consecutively from beginning to end – presumably the order chosen by the poet – or out of sequence’.43 Finally Fraistat argues that though a poetry book could be seen as
[a]hermeneutic straightjacket fashioned to restrict the reader’s movements, it might also be seen as a form through which poets can supplant or destabilize the meaning of one poem by that of others, freeing the reader to pursue a number of interpretive paths.44
Joshua Eckhardt applies Fraistat’s ideas in his study of seventeenth-century manuscript verse collections.45 He demonstrates how, through the arrangement of the poems in their manuscript miscellanies, verse collectors, put texts in new contexts, changing their frames of reference and, so, their referential capabilities. They precluded certain interpretations of poems and facilitated others. And they fostered new relationships between verses, associating originally unrelated works and consolidating the genre of anti- courtly love poetry.46
Lucia Re also regards anthologists as a kind of writer, arguing that the work of the anthologist ‘is always to some degree violent and repressive [and] is also an act of creative misreading and thus of writing’. She comments,
All anthologists mediate their content and by re-presenting each poem or extract away from its original textual sequence and context, they disfigure it to some extent. The change is less when re-presenting discrete poems, greater when extracting from long poems and greater still when using extracts from plays. The more the anthologist mediates, the greater the degree of disfigurement. 47
Extending these ideas, I will suggest that anthologies can change interpretations of Shakespeare’s texts.
43 Ibid., 8. 44 Fraistat 1986, 10. 45 Joshua Eckhardt, Manuscript Verse Collectors and the Politics of Anti-Courtly Love Poetry (Oxford: OUP, 2009), 6. 46 Ibid., 6. 47 Lucia Re, ‘(De)constructing the Canon: The Agon of the Anthologies on the Scene of Modern Italian Poetry’, MLR, 87.3 (1992), 585-602, 586. 20
J.B. Lethbridge regards an anthology as reader-defined and ‘only properly defined as an attitude, an intentional object, not as a physical object composed of texts or collections of texts’. He argues that ‘however structural the form of an anthology becomes, it is not the same thing as a through-written work’ and that ‘the most highly organized anthology’ is not ‘the same as the least organized written work’.48 He adds that although an anthology can be read as if it were a through- written work, ‘in general the anthology is read and designed to be read as an anthology; to be read by dipping in and out, paying no attention to what was before or after, as a series of discretions’.49 I suggest that whether a reader reads straight through an anthology or adopts the ‘skip and linger’ approach that Price describes, or dips in and out as Lethbridge discusses, the design and layout of anthologies make it impossible for the reader to be unaware of what precedes and follows each individual poem and be unaffected by the work of the anthologist in creating that anthology. The dipping in and out mode of reading, moreover, encourages readers to return to the anthology’s pages repeatedly. Although most studies are concerned with anthologies from limited time periods or with specific anthologies, they can offer observations on the anthology as a distinct concept and material entity. In The Making of the Modern Reader and elsewhere Barbara Benedict has considered literary anthologies published between the Restoration and the beginning of the nineteenth century, the time in which, she argues, they ‘became a printed genre directed to a diverse readership’.50 Her study is not limited to collections of poetry. For Benedict, ‘miscellanies’ are volumes of pre- printed material sewn together by publishers/booksellers for sale in one volume whereas ‘anthologies’ are collections printed in a single run, but she uses the two terms almost as synonyms and is concerned with both as ‘literary collections’. She argues that such literary collections both shape and are shaped by the cultural contexts in which they were produced and mediated between individual readers and literary culture to reflect and to shape contemporary literary taste. This is a two-way traffic ‘because miscellanies embody the literary choices of individual readers and booksellers, they transmit particular tastes to general culture and thus document the
48 J. B. Lethbridge, ‘Anthological Reading and Writing in Tudor England’ in Anthologies of British Poetry, 56-74, 72. 49 Ibid. 50 Barbara Benedict, The Making of the Modern Reader (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 3. 21 influence and impact that individual readers have on forming literary values’ but, at the same time, ‘printed anthologies transmit cultural ideas to individual readers and booksellers, helping to determine the way literature was read’.51 In a later essay Benedict again distinguishes anthologies from miscellanies: an anthology is a volume that contains material selected self-consciously for consistency and quality, usually long after the individual pieces had first been published, whereas a miscellany contains new material published for the first time but both are ‘literary collections sharing the same form and, consequently, reading practice’.52 She sees them as paradoxical: they are more than one work and at the same time are also one work; they leave out more than they include and are simultaneously inclusive and exclusive; they are a collection as a whole but can be experienced only in parts. Benedict argues that such literary collections conform to the theoretical requirements of a literary genre in possessing a characteristic form and requiring a specific kind of reading. Though containing distinct works by different authors each read and registered independently, all are understood by readers as part of the anthology as a whole. Benedict finds in the anthology, miscellany and literary collection a ‘basic model’ which is a ‘multifarious collection of literary works’ designed for ‘dip, sip and skip’ reading. Her approach is historicist; she argues that just as literary genres emerge from their conditions of production, so anthologies emerged and crystallised in the early modern period at a time when collecting became a popular activity. The reader plays an important part in Benedict’s understanding of the anthology genre. She writes, One of the crucial aspects of defining the genre of the literary anthology is thus how it is read. This involves a number of factors: who was reading it, how they had been trained to read, where it was read and why.53
She points out that mass-produced printed anthologies delivered precisely the same content to many readers, thus losing the individuality of earlier manuscript commonplace collections, but replacing it with a new emphasis on the individuality of reception. Benedict argues that since anthologies are a whole that is experienced in parts, this allows the anthology to reject linearity and enable a ‘multiplicity of reading procedures’ and invite readers to read non-teleologically. These aspects arise
51 Ibid., 4. 52Barbara Benedict, ‘The Paradox of the Anthology. Collecting and Différence in Eighteenth-century Britain’, New Literary History, 34.2 (2003), 231-256, 231/2. 53 Ibid., 249. 22 from the form itself but may be reinforced by techniques used by printers and editors. She argues that the material format encourages readers to regard the contents as individual items. The use of printer’s ornaments, lines and white space enforces the independence of items from one another and titles, internal title-pages, prefaces stressing multiple sources, indexes and tables of contents all encourage readers to evaluate each poem individually. The power granted to the reader to define meaning strips it from the author and since the significance of the anthology aggregates from its accumulated contents, it transcends the meanings of even all the authors put together. Unlike Ferry and Korte, Benedict does not see the anthologist as a kind of ‘author’ or ‘composer’, but the anthology as something manufactured by publishers, the contents of which are ‘mediated by editors and publishers’. The anthologist’s craft is a reader’s skill: The critical editor’s control over the material demonstrated that the skill required to evaluate and piece together the whole single work of the anthology from the collected contents it held was critical, scholarly, evaluative, synthetic: the skill of the reader not the writer.54
For Benedict the anthology became a genre in its own right, created by and creating specific ways of reading. In her essay ‘Textual Gatherings: Print, Community and Verse Miscellanies in Early Modern England’ Michelle O’Callaghan uses the terms anthology and miscellany interchangeably to describe multi-author collections and recognises such early modern poetry collections as a ‘distinct physical and conceptual format’. She focuses on a sub-group of anthology, the early modern ‘elegaic anthology’, specifically A Poetical Rhapsody and The Phoenix Nest, two collections which followed the death of Sidney and were used to fashion mourning communities that enshrined Sidney’s poetic legacy. In these the ‘poet editors’ used a distinct set of editorial practices to present their anthologies as ‘collaborative enterprises’ and create ‘communities of the book’. O’Callaghan regards these anthologies as places where the intersection and divergence of political interests and cultural and commercial agendas can be studied, and as showing how the anthology could be used to consolidate literary movements and fashion literary taste. She acknowledges the work of the anthologist when she writes:
54 Ibid., 251. 23
Literary ‘gatherings’ such as those represented by The Phoenix Nest are elaborate fictions, a product of the sophisticated use of the book and its machinery. The paratextual material, the organisation of the verses, the poets represented in the collection, and the repetition of particular motifs and themes, all work together to give the anthology a unity that is defined communally.55
To date there has been little study of the use of Shakespeare’s texts in anthologies over time. Kate Rumbold has taken the first step in a recent essay. Other studies have dealt with limited time spans and focussed on specific anthologies and I will refer to these when discussing the anthologies in question. Elsewhere the presence of Shakespeare’s texts in anthologies has been noted in passing as part of wider arguments about Shakespeare, early modern authorship, the history of the book or of reading. In her essay ‘Shakespeare Anthologized’ Rumbold focuses on ‘the effect of anthologization on Shakespeare’ and the part that anthologies have played in constructing ‘Shakespeare’ as ‘an English cultural icon’ and ‘global brand’. Rumbold takes a diachronic approach, rightly noting that studies of anthologies have tended to stop at the end of the eighteenth century, but is constrained in her essay-length study to a relatively small number of anthologies including quotation books. She argues that, by selecting what they considered to be beautiful or moral or valuable pieces from Shakespeare anthologists have conferred value and significance not only on those chosen pieces, but by implication, on the whole of Shakespeare’s work and on “Shakespeare” himself.56
Rumbold is interested in determining through the choices anthologists have made the aesthetic and moral qualities that have been and are admired in Shakespeare. She concludes that both anthologies and quotation books have ‘repeatedly linked Shakespeare’s aesthetic qualities to his ethical qualities and established a dual sense of his intrinsic (beauty) and instrumental (usefulness) value that persists today’.57 Rumbold’s approach is teleological. Starting from the premise that Shakespeare is an ‘icon’ who has gradually evolved and is valued and admired today for the beauty of his language, his understanding of human nature and his Englishness, she suggests that ‘anthologization’ has played a significant part in creating this icon. This is
55 O’Callaghan
III
This thesis will examine anthologies from different periods that include Shakespeare’s texts. It considers anthologies collecting from many writers and those drawing exclusively from Shakespeare and examines some texts not previously recognised as anthologies. It also considers some anthologies in non-book formats. Each anthology is read, to discover how it works inter-textually within itself and inter-textually with other anthologies. Appendices provide bibliographical and content details for anthologies considered in this thesis. The work of each anthologist is identified. As anthologies including Shakespeare become more numerous from the nineteenth century onwards, of necessity, only significant anthologies are considered. An anthology can be significant for a number of reasons: because of its anthologist or publisher, because of the volume of sales, because of the context in which it was published, because it is innovative in its approach or because of its format. The same broad set of issues is addressed with each anthology I consider: the extent to which it was an important disseminator of Shakespeare, its Shakespeare content and how this has been manipulated, to discover the Shakespeare that emerges from it. The Shakespeare each anthologist created and its relationship with contemporary notions of Shakespeare is considered in order to assess how anthologies distributing Shakespeare’s texts in morsels played a part in what is understood by ‘Shakespeare’.
25
1. One of our ‘Moderne poets’1: Shakespeare in anthologies during his lifetime
Shakespeare in 1600 is thought of as a man of the theatre: an actor, chief playwright for the Chamberlain’s Men and shareholder in the Globe playhouse, but he was also a man in print with two successful narrative poems and a number of plays available for readers. Several printed anthologies published during Shakespeare’s lifetime used extracts from his plays and poems: The Passionate Pilgrim (1598/9, 1599, 1612), Belvedere (1600, 1610), Englands Parnassus (1600), Englands Helicon (1600, 1614) and Loves Martyr (1601, 1611). Each created a distinctive ‘Shakespeare’ to stand alongside the man of the theatre. As well as these anthologies the turn of the seventeenth century saw two editions of Venus and Adonis (O5, O5a), editions of 1 Henry IV (Q2) and Romeo and Juliet (Q2) and an edition of Edward III,2 all in 1599. Of these only Q2 Henry IV and the narrative poem (through its signed dedication) were attributed to Shakespeare. 1600 saw two editions of both Lucrece (O3, O3a) and 2 Henry IV (Q1, Q1a), editions of The Merchant of Venice (Q1), Henry V (Q1), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Q1), Much Ado About Nothing (Q), 2 Henry VI (Q2), 3 Henry VI (Q2) and Titus Andronicus (Q2). Of these Q1/Q1a 2 Henry IV, Q1 Merchant and Q1 Dream have title-page attributions to Shakespeare and Lucrece was attributed through its signed dedication. The years 1598-1601 saw twenty-one printed texts newly available to readers that included Shakespeare’s texts wholly or in part: six editions of five anthologies, four editions of the narrative poems and eleven editions of ten plays. Readers could only know they were reading Shakespeare if the material text so indicated. Of those printed texts in which Shakespeare’s texts were attributed, there are five editions of various anthologies (excluding Belvedere which mentions Shakespeare amongst its contributors but does not attribute extracts), four editions of the two narrative poems and four editions of three plays ( Q2 and Q1/ Q1a, 2 Henry IV, Q1 Merchant and Q1 Dream). In and around 1600 then, Shakespeare was almost as readily available to readers in anthologies as in single-text formats. The Shakespeare these early modern anthologies created has not been fully explored because critics have tended to study them from a retrospective ‘searching for
1 Title-page Englands Parnassus. 2 In which Shakespeare collaborated. See Edward III, ed., Georgio Melchiori (Cambridge: CUP, 1998), 9-17. 26
Shakespeare’ perspective, scanning them to find the fragments of Shakespeare’s texts in them and using this to assess Shakespeare’s fame at the time or his development as a writer. I take a different approach, reading them as anthologies, as their original readers would have read them, and examining them to find the Shakespeare they created. I will consider these early anthologies closely since their anthologists’ Shakespeares persist today.
I The Passionate Pilgrime, 1599
The Passionate Pilgrime printed ‘for’ William Jaggard in 1598 or 1599 was the first printed anthology to incorporate Shakespeare’s texts.3 If the title-page had not used the phrase ‘By W. Shakespeare’, Pilgrim would probably only surface in notes in editions of Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Love’s Labour’s Lost; instead it is routinely reproduced in editions of Shakespeare’s Complete Works and of his Poems. Only one incomplete copy of the first edition of Pilgrim exists. It was discovered in 1920. The second edition was published in 1599 and a third edition in 1612, the latter so expanded with verses by Thomas Heywood that it constitutes a different anthology (see Appendix 1 for details of the early editions and their content). The Stationers’ Register has no entries for these early editions of Pilgrim and we cannot be sure when it was first printed, who printed it, who compiled it, who wrote much of its content, or even how many poems it contains and whether it is one anthology or two.4 For convenience I will refer to Jaggard as the anthologist. These unknowns and the attribution to Shakespeare have fomented critical speculation about the circumstances surrounding the publication of the anthology and few critics have considered the book’s merits as an anthology. A lingering narrative, which has William Jaggard as an unscrupulous pirate or, more recently, ‘a savvy marketeer’ cashing in on Shakespeare’s name by flagrantly mis-using it on the title-page, has distracted consideration of the anthology
3 The 1599 title-page has ‘Pilgrime’, the 1612 edition title-page has ‘Pilgrim’. The spelling is usually modernised and I do so hereafter. 4 The Passionate Pilgrim has two parts each with its own title-page. Malone in 1790 and the 1911 Arden Shakespeare edition of The Poems treated poem 14 as two poems. J.P. Collier split Poem 20 into two in his 1842-4 edition of The Works. 27 as an anthology.5 A reluctance to associate Shakespeare with ‘bad’ poetry underlies this narrative: Jaggard used ‘inferior’ versions of two Shakespeare sonnets and attached his name to other second-rate verses. Without clear evidence either way, it is alleged that Shakespeare played no part in the publication of Pilgrim and was annoyed by Jaggard’s use of his material and/or name. This speculation originates in a Shakespeare-centric interpretation of Thomas Heywood’s comments in his address to the printer appended to An Apology for Actors, published in 1612, the same year as the third edition of Pilgrim.6 Whether or not the poems in Pilgrim are authentic Shakespeare is immaterial to reading the anthology as an anthology. The title-page represents them as Shakespeare’s and that is what early readers believed they were buying. We do not know whether they were duped, and if not duped, whether they cared. In any event the book apparently sold well with two editions in 1598/1599. Bednarz argues that Nicholas Ling was not duped; his evidence being Ling’s careful attributions for Pilgrim poems he used in Englands Helicon, an anthology he is thought to have compiled.7 Heywood’s comments show that he was aware of Jaggard’s use of his material in The Passionate Pilgrim 1612 but do not indicate whether he regarded the 1599 Pilgrim material as genuine Shakespeare. Nor can we know if readers of The Passionate Pilgrim after 1612 would have been aware of Heywood’s ‘complaint’ in An Apology for Actors.8 Readers probably accepted the
5 Patrick Cheney, Shakespeare National Poet-Playwright (Cambridge: CUP, 2004), 143. 6 Thomas Heywood, An Apology for Actors (London, 1612), sig. G4r/v. For allegations and defences of Jaggard’s ‘piracy’, discussion of Pilgrim’s part in understanding early modern authorship and copyright, and in ascertaining Shakespeare’s ‘fame’ at the end of the sixteenth century see: Katherine Duncan-Jones, ed., Shakespeare’s Sonnets (London: Thomson Learning, 2003), 1-4; Swinburne’s Studies in Prose and Poetry (1894) quoted by James Bednarz in ‘The Passionate Pilgrim and “The Phoenix and Turtle” in Patrick Cheney ed., The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s Poetry (Cambridge: CUP, 2007), 108-124 (Bednarz 2007a) ; James Shapiro, 1599:A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (London: Faber & Faber, 2005) 213-4; Lukas Erne, ‘Print and Manuscript’ in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s Poetry, 54-71; Max W. Thomas, ‘Eschewing Credit: Heywood, Shakespeare and Plagiarism before Copyright’, New Literary History, 31 (2000), 277-293; Colin Burrow, The Complete Poems and Sonnets (Oxford: OUP, 2002); Arthur Marotti, ‘Shakespeare’s Sonnets as Literary Property’ in Harvey and Eisaman Maus, eds., Soliciting Interpretation, Literary Theory and Seventeenth Century English Poetry (Chicago; London: Chicago University Press,1990), 143-173; Wendy Wall, The Imprint of Gender (Ithaca NY; London: Cornell University Press, 1993), 95-109; Cheney 2004; James Bednarz, ‘Canonising Shakespeare: The Passionate Pilgrim, Englands Helicon and the Question of Authenticity’, SS 60 (Cambridge: CUP, 2007) ,252-267.(Bednarz 2007b). Also Joseph Loewenstein Ben Jonson and Possessive Authorship (Cambridge: CUP, 2002) 60-62, Sasha Roberts, Reading Shakespeare’s Poems in Early Modern England (Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) especially Chapter 4 (Roberts 2003a). 7 Bednarz 2007a, 109. See Appendix 4. 8 The fact that Heywood does not accuse Jaggard of further misuse of other writers’ material might suggest that he assumed the rest of the content to be Shakespeare’s, or that he simply did not care; or 28 title-page attribution and for most of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Shakespeare was regarded as the author of The Passionate Pilgrim. Benson in 1640, Lintott in 1709 and Gildon in 1710 all thought so and it is not until Malone, at the end of the eighteenth century, that editors began to distinguish between authentic and inauthentic Shakespeare in Pilgrim.9 By the beginning of the twentieth century the consensus was, and remains, that five of the poems are Shakespeare’s, two are Barnfield’s, one Griffin’s, one Marlowe’s/Raleigh’s and ten remain unattributed. The poems of unknown authorship have not been reconsidered or subjected to modern computer-based testing and C.H. Hobday’s essay, making a case for Shakespeare’s authorship of the ‘Venus and Adonis’ sonnets (Poems 4, 6 and 9), remains the only published work in this area.10 This may be because The Passionate Pilgrim is a secure fixture in the Complete Works or due to a lingering reluctance to attribute bad poems to Shakespeare. Since 1612 editors have radically changed Jaggard’s work and diminished The Passionate Pilgrim’s impact as an anthology. The 1612 edition of Pilgrim is generally ignored and the 1599 text is invariably used. Editors have modernised, re- punctuated, realigned and applied titles and variously incorporated Jaggard’s anthology in editions of the Complete Works and the Poems. Its ‘traditional’ location in single volume Complete Works has been at the very end, although the current Arden Complete Works prints all the poems ahead of the plays to avoid relegating them to an end of volume ghetto. The Oxford Complete Works that presents the plays in the assumed order of composition prints eleven Pilgrim poems ‘of unknown authorship since the attribution to Shakespeare has not been disproved’ in a ‘Various Poems’ section roughly two-thirds of the way through the volume, immediately following ‘Sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint’.11 The RSC Complete Works omits
perhaps he did not actually read The Passionate Pilgrim 1612, as he is apparently unaware that Jaggard used more than the two of his love ‘epistles’ that he mentions. 9 John Benson, Poems: Written by Wil. Shake-speare, Gent., (London, 1640); Bernard Lintott, A collection of poems, viz. I. Venus and Adonis II .The rape of Lucrece III. The passionate pilgrim IV. Sonnets to sundry notes of music. By Mr. William Shakespeare (London: 1709); Gildon ed. The Works of Mr William Shakespear. Volume the Seventh…(London, 1710) – the unauthorised supplementary volume to Rowe’s, The works of Mr. William Shakespeare,(1709). 10 C.H. Hobday ‘Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis Sonnets’, SS 26 (1973), 103-109. 11John Jowett et al. eds., The Oxford Shakespeare The Complete Works, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005), 805. It does not accept the attribution of ‘Crabbed age and youth’ (PP12) to Deloney. 29
The Passionate Pilgrim completely.12 The Pilgrim poems are usually numbered and printed to follow one another closely, often several poems sharing a page. The title- pages and layout of the original is lost. In modern editions The Passionate Pilgrim cannot be read in the way the anthologist intended, even facsimile editions are framed with modern introductions, notes and, in the case of the 1883 facsimile, individual titles to the poems.13 Concentration on Jaggard’s tainted reputation, on attribution and the subsequent editing of the anthology has resulted in his work as an anthologist being ignored or devalued. Critics have considered Pilgrim mainly in relation to questions of early modern authorship and copyright or as an indicator of Shakespeare’s celebrity around 1600. Those who have read it as a discrete anthology do so mostly in terms of its Shakespearean intertexts, to show how Jaggard selected and arranged the content to encourage readers to think they were getting genuine Shakespeare. The piracy narrative has Jaggard placing most of his ‘genuine’ material first with the ‘Venus and Adonis’ sonnets which readers would instinctively connect with Shakespeare’s poem. Colin Burrow comments on the ‘non-Shakespeare’ contents: most of them give their readers just enough to enable them to believe they are by Shakespeare if they really want to. The Shakespearian poems are artfully disposed so as to make the most of apparent continuities with the non- Shakespearian pieces. Jaggard or whoever ordered the poems, knew that readers want to make sequences out of series.
Jaggard did not just invent a volume of poems by Shakespeare: he gave his readers just enough of Shakespeare to make them collaborate with his invention. In that respect he was not the thief and scoundrel Swinburne took him for, but a sharp publisher and a shrewd reader.14
Cheney reads Pilgrim intertextually with Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, the Sonnets, Romeo and Juliet and Love’s Labour’s Lost,15 using it in his argument for Shakespeare’s compound identity as a poet/playwright, the literary persona he had consciously created for himself on an Ovidian/Spenserian pattern. The significance of Pilgrim thus lies in the Shakespeare that Jaggard presented in 1599. Cheney
12 The RSC Shakespeare single volume Sonnets and Other Poems, ed., Eric Rasmussen (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2009) offers the usual authorship caveats but prints all the poems and, unusually, starts each one on a fresh page as in the original anthology. 13Edward Dowden, ed., The Passionate Pilgrim (London: Griggs,1883). 14 Burrow, 80, 82. 15 Cheney 2004, 151-172. 30 emphasises the paradox of the anthology’s marginal role in modern Shakespeare studies and its important role in Shakespeare’s career as a poet/playwright. He notes that the first person voice is used in three quarters of the poems, encouraging readers to identify ‘the passionate pilgrim’ with Shakespeare and sees The Passionate Pilgrim, whatever Jaggard’s intentions, as presenting a Shakespeare ‘coining tales from other poets, its author a deliciously failed priest of erotic love, victimized by the allure of feminine infidelity’.16 Cheney regards the use of the three poems from Love’s Labour’s Lost which are ‘presented as poems in the fiction of’ that play as drawing attention to the ‘special economy of poetry and theatre in late-Elizabethan England’ and he regards their presence in Pilgrim as registering ‘Shakespeare’s success in rehearsing the author’s own special interest in this particular Elizabethan economy.17 For Cheney, Shakespeare in Love’s Labour’s Lost uses the play to perform a poem: ‘The fact that Jaggard printed poems out of the play for Shakespeare’s printed work of poetry registers acutely the fertile conditions for combining poetry and theatre at this time.18 Bednarz also thinks The Passionate Pilgrim is important in establishing Shakespeare as a poet/playwright: Central to Jaggard’s project was the conviction he shared with Meres that Shakespeare’s literary achievement was equally demonstrated in his dramatic and non-dramatic works, in plays, narrative poems and sonnets, which he treats as analogous poetic media. Indeed Jaggard’s ‘Shakespeare’ collection is a prime example of the hybrid quality of Elizabethan theatrical/literary culture.19
Bednarz finds the anthology’s coherence derives from ‘its network of formal, thematic, and verbal analogues secured by its four primary Shakespeare intertexts: the unpublished Sonnets, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Venus and Adonis, and Romeo and Juliet’.20 Since Bednarz considers Jaggard a pirate, he suggests deliberate trickery, noting that ‘All but one of Jaggard’s poems fit three metrical patterns that Shakespeare prominently employed – sonnet, sixain, and tetrameter’.21 Lukas Erne also reads the anthology through its Shakespearean intertexts:
16 Ibid., 160. 17 Ibid., 171. 18 Ibid., 172. 19 Bednarz 2007a, 112. 20 Ibid.,113. 21 Ibid., 113. 31
What holds The Passionate Pilgrim together – and is likely to have been counted on for the volume’s commercial success – is a number of Shakespearean intertexts: the title’s ‘pilgrim’ calls up the conjunction of the amorous and the religious characteristic of the Petrarchan poetry ‘hony- tongued’ Shakespeare was associated with and may have been meant, more specifically, to remind readers of the sonnet the young lovers share in Romeo and Juliet. The so-called ‘Venus and Adonis’ poems, whose author remains unidentified, establish a connection to Shakespeare’s most popular work in print. The three songs and sonnets from Love’s Labour’s Lost tap into memories of readers and auditors of Shakespeare’s play. And the opening sonnets may not just correspond to but also remind readers of the ‘sugred sonnets’ Meres mentioned. Plays and poems, manuscript and print – Jaggard seems to have been able to draw upon a variety of sources to publish a work which was in more than one sense ‘Shakespearean’, even though most of the content may not in fact have been written by Shakespeare. 22
Ultimately Erne finds the anthology ‘Shakespearean’ despite its lack of genuine Shakespeare texts and considers it ‘unified by commercial rather than poetic intentions’ but ‘Jaggard’s much more than Shakespeare’s’.23 Erne is critical of Jaggard, but ignoring commercial motives and regarding the anthologist Jaggard as an author in a one-sided collaboration with Shakespeare is a new and fruitful way to approach the anthology. Sasha Roberts argues for reading Pilgrim as a dialogic volume that works through intertextuality; its own intertextuality, not an intertextuality with other Shakespeare texts.24 Following this approach I offer a reading of Pilgrim that foregrounds the work of Shakespeare’s ‘co-writer’ and uncovers the Shakespeare the anthology creates. Setting aside all thoughts of piracy and commercial intention, the 1599 title- page appears elegant, simple, and balanced. The title dominates. An abstract ornament rather than the printer’s device separates the title and the authorial attribution from the minimal amount of information identifying the name of the ‘publisher’, the place and date of printing and the location for wholesale purchase. The editors of Arden 3 Shakespeare’s Poems consider the title unusual in not denoting a collection of poems or having an immediate connection with the content, as neither passion nor pilgrim is mentioned in the poems as such.25 However the alliterative title suggests a verse collection by following a fashion for alliterative
22 Erne 2007, 59. 23 Ibid. 24 Sasha Roberts, ‘Reception and Influence’ in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s Poetry, 260-279. 25 Katherine Duncan-Jones and H.R. Woudhuysen, eds., Shakespeare’s Poems (London: Thomson , 2007), 386. 32
Fig. 1. Title-page O2 The Passionate Pilgrime, 1599
33 titles for such collections, examples being A small Handful of Fragrant Flowers (1575), A Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions (1578), The Forrest of Fancy (1579), Brittons Bowre of Delights (1591), Pilgrimage to Paradise (1592) and The Arbor of Amorous Devices (1597). Around 1599 ‘passionate’ was an adjective used to describe a cluster of emotions: impassioned, vehement, excessively emotional, compassionate, inclined to pity, tender hearted.26 Florio’s Italian/English dictionary offers various synonyms for ‘passionato’: passionate, distempered, grieved, vexed, earnest, perturbed in mind.27 ‘Passionate’, printed twice as large as the other title words, gives a clear indication of the nature of the content. In pastoral poetry ‘passionate’ was a conventional epithet for ‘shepherd’ or ‘poet’.28 As the editors of the Arden third series edition of Shakespeare’s Poems note, the notion of a secular or amorous pilgrimage was another literary convention seen in titles like the play The Pilgrimage to Parnassus (c.1598-9) and John Davies’ sonnet sequence Wits Pilgrimage.29 Pilgrim’s title is often read inter-textually with Romeo and Juliet, linking it with the lovers’ ‘sonnet’ in that play (1.5. 92-105) and, for those regarding Jaggard as a pirate, this provides further evidence of his trickery. Contemporary references indicate that Romeo and Juliet was a popular stage play. 30 It had been printed in 1597 and 1599, albeit without title-page attribution to Shakespeare, but it is retrospectively Shakespeare-centric to assume that purchasers of The Passionate Pilgrim in 1599 would connect it and the passage in Romeo and Juliet. Instead Jaggard’s title conditions expectations and works inter-textually with the anthology’s content. The layout of the poems and the limited paratexts - there is no dedication, commendatory verses or preface, and no numbers or titles to the poems – allows the poems to speak for themselves. The use of printer’s flowers had featured in other sonnet collections: Constable’s Diana (1594?), Spenser’s Amoretti and Epithalamium (1595), Griffin’s Fidessa (1596) and E.C.’s Emaricdulfe (1595). Emaricdulfe and Diana both have a single row above each poem and a double row
26 David and Ben Crystal’s online glossary
Neil Fraistat has shown that the arrangement of poems in an anthology conditions how we respond to them.33 Jaggard’s title suggests that the anthology is organised to take the reader on a pilgrimage or journey through the varied aspects of love, and this is what it does. I consider poems 1 to 14 to comprise The Passionate Pilgrim and that Sonnets To Sundry Notes of Music (poems 15 to 20) is just that, a separate collection of song lyrics. The poems are selected to reflect the nuances of ‘passionate’ in relation to love. Jaggard’s choice of texts may or may not have been constrained and it is worth noting that he takes nothing from Venus and Adonis, Lucrece or Romeo and Juliet: three texts available in print that deal with love, that are used in other contemporary anthologies and are those most frequently referred to by contemporaries.34 Pilgrim opens with two ‘Shakespeare’ sonnets which are usually read anachronistically and intertextually with the ‘superior’ versions, sonnets 138 and 144 from the 1609 Sonnets. In Pilgrim, ‘When my Loue sweares that she is made of truth’ (PP1) plunges the reader into an edgy world of false lover’s vows: ‘truth’, ‘lies’, ‘false forgeries’ and ‘false speaking’. ‘Love’, repeated ten times, dominates and visually stands out with an initial capital (with one exception). There is mutual deception on the part of the poet and the beloved, but the poet emerges as the
31 Cheney 2004, 154. 32 Henry Woudhuysen, ‘The Foundations of Shakespeare’s Text’, Proceedings of The British Academy, 125 (2004), 69-100, 80. 33 Fraistat 1985 and 1986. 34 Englands Parnassus and Belvedere draw heavily on the two narrative poems and Englands Parnassus also uses passages from RJ, R2, R3 1H4 and LLL. See The Shakspere Allusion Book for contemporary references to these texts. 35 principal deceiver - an irresistible conceit for those who think Jaggard identifies ‘W. Shakespeare’ as ‘the passionate pilgrim’ and set out to deceive readers. In ‘Two Loues I have, of Comfort, and Despaire’ (PP2) Sasha Roberts notes that it is not entirely clear whether the poem depicts romantic, erotic or sexual rivalry. Placed after the first sonnet, it continues the lover’s journey and we can read the ‘Woman’ as the love of the first poem.35 The language introduces a religious imagery that connects with the passionate pilgrimage of the title and the poet’s pilgrimage to his ‘saint’. A morality play is suggested, where a good and bad angel fight for the poet and which is reflected in the contrasting pairs: Comfort/Despaire, Man/Woman, Angell/feend, faire/ill Saint/Diuell. Negative concepts outweigh positives: ‘despaire’, ‘worser’, ‘ill’, ‘euill’, ‘tempteth’, ‘corrupt’, ‘Deuill’, ‘pride’, ‘feend’, ‘hell’, ‘doubt’, ‘bad’ and a negative outcome is predicted in the final line. In this poem the world of love is far from the simple world of Petrarchan courtly love or pastoral. The language and imagery of these first two poems suggest a ‘Shakespeare’ who is neither ‘hony-tongued’ nor ‘sweet’ – the descriptions repeatedly applied by contemporaries: Meres, Weever, Barnfield and the dramatists of The First Part of The Return from Parnassus.36 ‘Did not the heauenly Rhetorike’ (PP3), Longaville’s ‘sonnet’ from Love’s Labour’s Lost , is the second of the four lovers’ poems read on stage by its ‘author’ during the play and one ‘in the liver vein’ whose rhetorical artifice is mocked. In Pilgrim it continues the theme of lovers’ broken promises and lies – vows being seen here as unsubstantial ‘vapor’ as easily broken as vapour evaporates in the sun. In the play Longaville’s poem argues that he is not breaking his oath to forswear the company of women because it cannot apply to his love, she being ‘a goddess’ a ‘heavenly’ not an ‘earthly’ love. The only significant difference between this version and that in the play is in the final line: Pilgrim reads ‘To breake an Oath, to win a Paradise?’ whereas Q1 Love’s Labour’s Lost reads ‘To loose an oth, to winn a Paradise’. The anthology loses the wordplay of win/lose and perhaps the sense of letting the oath slip away but the notion of broken vows, no more substantial than breath, is emphasised. Outside the play the poem can be read as relating to two women in the poet’s life: the woman he has forsworn or renounced for a new love
35 Roberts 2003a, 155. 36 Francis Meres in Palladis Tamia; John Weever in Ad Guielmum Shakespeare; Richard Barnfield in A Remembrance of some English Poets in his Poems in Divers Humors; 1 Return TLN 1032. See The Shakspere Allusion Book, 46, 24, 51, 67 and 68. 36 who will offer him paradise, whose beauty cannot be resisted and who has persuaded him to forswear his old love. But he has committed a ‘false perjury’, the tautology operating like a double negative to free him from guilt and take him to ‘Paradise’. Here the underlying theme of easily abandoned promises has a darker tone than in the play. The references to ‘Goddesse’ and ‘Paradise’ in the play are seen as hyperbole; here they link with the angels and devils of the previous poem and the goddess of the next poem. ‘Sweet Cytherea, sitting by a brooke…’ (PP4) marks a shift in tone and voice as we move from an ‘earthly’ goddess to a real one, Cytherea or Venus. This is one of the so-called Venus and Adonis sonnets, written in the third person, which recall the tone (and humour) of Shakespeare’s narrative poem. In ‘If Loue make me forsworn’ (PP5), Berowne’s sonnet from Love’s Labour’s Lost, we return to a poem written in the first person. It appears earlier in that play than the other lovers’ eavesdropped sonnets and on stage much of the humour arises from the fact that it has been switched with Don Armado’s letter and is read aloud as if its addressee were Jaquenetta. In the play references to oaths, swearing and knowledge make more sense than reading the poem out of context and it is harder to imagine a coherent fictional narrative, but the mix of words connected with oaths and swearing reflects the topics of the preceding poems in Pilgrim. The poem depicts a student drawn from his course or predisposition (‘bias’), his thoughts instead of standing strong like oaks, bending towards his beloved like supple willow (‘osiers’). The poet substitutes his lover’s eyes for his books: to know his love is all the knowledge he needs. Love has caused the poet to be forsworn but although he cannot keep his promise to himself he will be constant to his beloved because she is beautiful. The final four lines are complex; the poet seems to argue that, as his beloved is ‘celestial’ and he is ‘earthly’, it is inappropriate for him to sing her praises because he cannot do so in a sufficiently heavenly manner. ‘Scarse had the Sunne’ (PP6) is another of the Venus and Adonis sonnets; the one in respect of which Hobday makes the strongest claims for Shakespeare’s authorship. From debating a ‘celestiall’/earthly love the anthology moves to a narrative about the goddess and her pursuit of Adonis as Cytherea admires Adonis, as the poet in the previous poem had admired his beloved (‘I thy parts admire’). In ‘Faire is my loue, but not so faire as fickle’ (PP7) the poem changes from the conventional 14 lines to an 18 line sonnet form – used occasionally by Sidney and Thomas Watson. It tells of a false lying mistress with a vocabulary of 37 false oaths, unfaithfulness and a mistress who ‘coins’ false tales to please her lover. One line, ‘How many tales to please me hath she coined’ (‘coined’ meaning invented with the added sense of forging money) appeals to Cheney who regards Jaggard as ‘coining’ a Shakespeare for readers and thereby ‘coining it’ for himself. ‘If Musicke and sweet Poetrie’ (PP8) is presented as a conventional heterosexual love sonnet, although Barnfield’s poem was addressed to R.L., usually understood to be Richard Lynche, writer of the sonnet sequence Diella (1596). References to celestial beings: ‘heavenly’ ‘god’ and ‘Phoebus’ create an oblique link to the following Venus and Adonis sonnet, ‘Faire was the morne’ (PP9) which continues the erotic/humorous pursuit of Adonis by the goddess. The following poem ‘Sweet rose, faire flower’ (PP10) operates as an elegy, in the first person voice, for a ‘faire creature’ a dead friend or lover who could be male or female. The poem shares the six-line stanza form of Venus and Adonis and could be read as Venus’ lament for Adonis. ‘Venus with Adonis sitting’ (PP11) is the last of the four Venus and Adonis poems. This version of Griffin’s poem is less critical of Adonis than the one published in his Fidessa. Rather than showing folly and cowardice by running away and neglecting the goddess, Adonis wilfully and humorously ‘would not take her meaning nor her pleasure’. The poet wishes he were in Adonis’ position with his lover. The following poem ‘Crabbed age and youth’ (PP12) can be read as a comic comment on the age disparity between young Adonis and Venus. Malone interpreted it as Venus’ comparison of young Adonis and aged Vulcan, but it also links back to the lover in the first poem (PP1) whose ‘years be past the best’ where the tone is not comic. Whereas in Deloney’s longer version of this poem it is clear that the speaker is female, here the poem can, just about, be read in the voice of a male lover, if he addresses himself in the penultimate line. ‘Beauty is but a vaine and doubtfull good’ (PP13) is a meditation on beauty which, Burrow suggests, is linked through its delicacy and evanescence with the blossom playing in the air in PP16. Its only Shakespearean link is the sixain stanza form of Venus and Adonis. ‘Good night, good rest’ (PP14) is often read intertextually with Romeo and Juliet, as Romeo’s thoughts after the balcony scene. Ignoring external texts, it concerns another aspect of romantic love, the conventional notion of time passing slowly when the lover and his beloved are apart. The fourteen Pilgrim poems are linked by their exploration of aspects of romantic/erotic love and by the themes of vows, broken vows, lovers young and old, 38 lovers heavenly and earthly. In the earliest editions of The Passionate Pilgrim a second title-page divides the volume into two ‘books’. Identical in format to the first title-page its title (Sonnets to sundry notes of Musicke) is generic not metaphoric: these are five sonnets in the sense of song lyrics and they are not connected to one another or to the first fourteen poems but comprise a separate collection. One can say little in defence of the ballad ‘It was a Lordings daughter’ (PP15). ‘On a day (alacke the day)’ (PP 16) is a version of Dumaine’s poem from Love’s Labour’s Lost, edited to remove two lines after line 14 (‘Do not call it sinne in me | That I am forsworn for thee’). Most editors claim this is to allow the poem to be read out of the context of the play. This is not absolutely necessary for the purposes of the anthology; had it been printed in the first ‘book’, these lines would link it with the theme of broken vows. Its tetrameters render it closer to a song than the other Love’s Labour’s Lost poems used. ‘My flockes feede not’ (PP17),37 ‘Liue with me and be my Loue’ (PP19) and ‘As it fell vpon a Day’ (PP20) are also used in England’s Helicon and are conventional ‘pastoral’ lyrics. Using Dumaine’s sonnet alongside them suggests that it was also considered as another conventional pastoral lyric; in England’s Helicon it is titled ‘The passionate Sheepheard’s song’. Jaggard does not play fast and loose with Shakespeare’s texts but shows a respect towards them. He only alters texts occasionally to fit his overall aim and uses poems which are standalone pieces. In this he differs from his contemporaries, the compilers of the printed commonplace book Belvedere and England’s Parnassus, who extracted Shakespearean textual fragments. Duncan-Jones and Woudhuysen say of Pilgrim: What has largely been overlooked is the book’s significance, for those readers who received it unquestionably as his work, in defining and establishing Shakespeare’s literary reputation. The Passionate Pilgrim both reflects and reinforces an image of Shakespeare at the end of the 1590s as the supreme master of erotic and amorous verse.38
Hindsight colours their second sentence: the poet Shakespeare created by the anthology is not a ‘supreme master’. When assessing the Shakespeare Jaggard created, Pilgrim should be read as its earliest readers presumably read it, accepting all its content as Shakespeare’s. The Shakespeare that emerges is predominantly a
37 Previously published as a song in 1597 in Weelkes’ collection of madrigals. 38 Duncan-Jones and Woudhuysen, 85. 39 lyric poet, a writer of amorous verse and a sonneteer - the majority of the poems are sonnets in the loosest sense of the term. An Ovidian influence is detectable in the subject matter of the Venus and Adonis sonnets and these might be termed ‘sugred’ but they are also tinged with humour as are Poems 8 and 19. This lyric poet Shakespeare adopts a variety of forms and tone; the first two sonnets are far from sweet and ‘hony-tongued’ and display a cynical harder edge. The quality of the verse is generally not of the highest, which is why so many commentators have objected to Jaggard’s attribution. The Love’s Labour’s Lost poems resort to hyperbole and strained rhymes though in the play the lovers’ poetic offerings are not intended to be matchless verse but are to be mocked. The Shakespeare Jaggard created is not a playwright: there are no dramatic extracts in the anthology, the excerpts from Love’s Labour’s Lost being standalone poems which would have circulated apart from the play script as stage props, papers to be read.39 The Shakespeare created by Jaggard’s The Passionate Pilgrim is a poet of erotic and amorous verse but not its supreme master nor invariably ‘mellifluous and hony-tongued’. The edition of The Passionate Pilgrim published in 1612 is frequently overlooked but is important because the Shakespeare it created lived on in Benson’s Poems of 1640 and Gildon’s Volume the Seventh (1710), both of which reprinted the 1612 Pilgrim.40 In 1612 Pilgrim was extensively revised so as to become a different anthology under the same title. The material added to the 1599 Pilgrim text, all from Heywood’s Troia Britanica, comprises the bulk of the anthology (see Appendix 1). As the printer of Troia Britanica in 1609, Jaggard should have known that the added material was not Shakespeare’s, although as the owner of both Troia and 1599 Pilgrim texts he was entitled to use both. However the 1612 anthology was offered to the public as Shakespeare or that is certainly the case in one of the two extant copies (see Appendix 1). Since Benson, Gildon and subsequent editors took the title- page attribution at face value, presumably contemporary readers did so too. The Shakespeare emerging from the 1612 Passionate Pilgrim differs from the one created by the 1599 anthology. The 1612 title-page addition: ‘OR/Certaine Amorous Sonnets,/ betweene Venus and Adonis,/ newly corrected and aug-/mented’ draws attention to its ‘Venus and Adonis’ sonnets, emphasising Shakespeare the sonneteer
39 See Tiffany Stern, Documents of Performance in Early Modern England (Cambridge: CUP, 2009). Q1 LLL sig. E3v has the stage direction ‘Dumaine reads his sonnet’. 40 Sasha Roberts, however, examines its use in Benson’s Poems: Written by Wil. Shake-speare, Gent., (1640). Roberts 2003a. 40 and writer of amorous verses. The title-page gives equal importance to the additional material: ‘Where-unto is newly ad-/ded two Loue-Epistles, the first from Paris to Hellen, and/ Hellens answere backe/ againe to Paris’. It has been suggested that placing this information after the attribution was intended to distance this material from Shakespeare, thereby only obliquely attributing it to him, but there is no internal division and the Heywood material runs straight on from the 1599 text (at sig. D5r). As well as the two promised ‘epistles’, other verses based on Greek myths are included but if readers were led to expect this to be of the same ilk as Venus and Adonis they were disappointed. The Shakespeare created in the 1612 Pilgrim remains a writer of amorous verse but as well as being the lyric poet and sonneteer created in the 1599 anthology, the additional material creates a poet of inconsistent quality: the narrative poet of Venus and Adonis on a bad day.
II Belvedere, Englands Parnassus and Englands Helicon, 1600
Sentences gathered out of all kinds of Poetts, referred to certaine methodicall heads, suitable for the use of these times, to rime vpon any occasion at a little warning. 41
Around the time that Jaggard created a Shakespeare in The Passionate Pilgrim, the anthologists of Belvedere and Englands Parnassus used extracts from Shakespeare’s texts to create a different Shakespeare. In the past scholars concentrated on attributing the extracts and identifying the anthologies’ creators, more recently, Belvedere and Englands Parnassus have been studied in explorations of early modern reading habits, the acceptance of vernacular drama as literature and Shakespeare’s status at the end of the sixteenth century.42 I consider the Shakespeare their anthologists created.
41 Description of Belvedere in The Second Part of the Return from Parnassus, 1.2. TLN 198-201. The Three Parnassus Plays, ed., J.B. Leishman (London: Ivor Nicholson Watson, 1949). 42 See Franklin Williams, ‘John Bodenham “Arts Lover, Learnings Friend”’, Studies in Philology, 31 (1934), 198-214; Charles Crawford, ‘Belvedere, or The Garden of the Muses’, Englische Studien, 4 (1910-11); 198-228; Celeste Turner Wright, ‘Anthony Munday and the Bodenham Miscellanies’, PQ, 40.4 (1961), 449-461; Charles Crawford, ed., Englands Parnassus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913). Crawford also published a series of articles in Notes and Queries during 1908-9: N&Q s.10- IX: 341 ,401; s.10 –X: 4, 84, 182, 262, 362 ,444; s.10-XI: 4, 123, 204, 283, 383, 443, 502 and s.10- XII: 235. In these his main concern was to identify and attribute extracts in Englands Parnassus and criticise J.P. Collier’s attributions in his edition of the anthology. 41
Belvedere, or the garden of the Muses, 1600.
Belvedere was one of a cluster of anthologies to which the names of John Bodenham, Nicolas Ling, Robert Allott, Anthony Munday, Francis Meres and Cuthbert Burby have been variously attached as collectors, compilers, editors, publishers and booksellers.43 It was a commonplace book anthology. Ann Moss defines the commonplace book at the end of the sixteenth century as a collection of quotations (usually Latin quotations) culled from authors held to be authoritative, or, at any rate, commendable in their opinions, and regarded as exemplary in terms of linguistic usage and stylistic niceties. The feature which distinguished the commonplace book from any random collection of quotations was the fact that the selected extracts were gathered together under heads. 44
Early modern students collected ‘commonplaces’, striking or aphoristic phrases from their reading and noted them in a commonplace book for future use in their own compositions. Printed commonplace books like Belvedere were the commercial creations of stationers, mimicking in print the private manuscript commonplace books of the educated classes. Their anthologists collected, selected, edited and had printed commonplaces for readers who were without the Latin, time, education or inclination to do so for themselves. Arthur Marotti suggests the material in Belvedere and the other ‘Bodenham anthologies’ may have come from Bodenham’s own manuscript commonplace books and verse collections.45
Recent studies include Max W. Thomas, ‘Reading and Writing the Renaissance Commonplace Book: A Question of Authorship?’ in The Construction of Authorship Textual Appropriation in Law and Literature, ed. Martha Woodmansee and Peter Jaszi (Durham; London: Duke University Press, 1994), 401-415; Roberts 2003a; Sasha Roberts, ‘Reading Shakespeare’s Tragedies of Love: Romeo and Juliet, Othello and Antony and Cleopatra in Early Modern England’ in A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works: The Tragedies, ed. Richard Dutton and Jean Howard (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 108-133 ( Roberts 2003b); Lukas Erne, Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist (Cambridge: CUP, 2003); Peter Stallybrass and Roger Chartier, ‘Reading and Authorship: The Circulation of Shakespeare 1590-1619’ in A Concise Companion to Shakespeare and the Text, ed., Andrew Murphy (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 35-55; Zachary Lesser and Peter Stallybrass, ‘The First Literary Hamlet and the Commonplacing of Professional Plays’, SQ, 59.4 (2008), 371-420; Lukas Erne ‘The Popularity of Shakespeare in Print’ SS 62 (2009) 12- 29. 43 The others are Politeuphia Wits Commonwealth (1597), Francis Meres’ Palladis Tamia Wits Treasury being the Second Part of Wits Commonwealth (1598), Wits Theatre of the Little World (1599), Englands Parnassus (1600); and Englands Helicon (1600). See Arthur F. Marotti, ‘Bodenham [Bodnam] John (c.1559-1610)’ in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online
The extracts in Belvedere are arranged under a wide range of topical headings starting with ‘Of God’ working through numerous topics and ending with ‘Of Death’. Under each heading the material is arranged in a highly stylised manner explained in the prefatory ‘To the Reader’: Thou seest that they are most learned, graue and wittie sentences; each line being a seuerall sentence, and none exceeding two lines at the vttermost. All which, being subiected vnder apt and proper heads, as arguments what then is dilated and spoken of: euen so each head hath first his definition in a couplet sentence; then the single and double sentences by variation of letter do follow: and lastly, similes and Examples in the same nature likewise, to conclude euery head or Argument handled.46
Each section heading is framed by printers’ flowers and an original rhymed couplet follows, apparently especially composed for the book. The commonplace ‘sentences’ below are sentences both grammatically and as ‘sententia’; each one usually comprising ten syllables and fitting on one line of text. Sub-sections: ‘Similes on the same Subject’ and ‘Examples likewise on the same’ follow each section of ‘sentences’. The similes are two-line passages all beginning ‘As…’ and the examples are also two line extracts. Great care and thought went into the anthology’s arrangement and a postface (‘The Conclusion’) informs that it ‘cost no meane paines and labour to reduce’ the contents ‘into this forme and method’. It also explains the omission of some writers, like Chaucer, Gower and Lydgate, because their texts would not fit the book’s ten syllable line pattern. The book is paginated (recto and verso) and topical running headers aid navigation. An index is more than just an alphabetical list of the topics covered as many additional subjects are listed and cross-referenced to the topic headings. None of the extracts in Belvedere is attributed, but readers would have been more interested in what is said, how it is expressed and how they might re-use the extracts. A century ago Charles Crawford painstakingly analysed Belvedere’s contents and identified just over half of the 4482 extracts.47 The largest number of extracts (680) Crawford discovered were lifted from the earlier printed commonplace book Politeuphia and reworked into verse. Crawford identified thirty-eight authors whose texts were used who are listed in Appendix 2. Authors with most extracts are Drayton (269), Spenser (215), Daniel (215) and Shakespeare (214) with twenty-three
46 Belvedere (London, 1600), sig.A3v-A4r. 47 See Crawford ‘Belvedere’ and also Crawford’s Appendix D to Vol.2 of The Shakspere Allusion Book . 43 extracts from Edward III, which Crawford was ‘convinced’ was by Shakespeare.48 Leaving aside the Edward III extracts, there are 89 extracts from Shakespeare’s plays: five from Love’s Labour’s Lost, thirteen from Romeo and Juliet, one from 1 Henry IV, forty-seven from Richard II, thirteen from Richard III and ten from 3 Henry VI. There are considerably more extracts from Shakespeare’s narrative poems with ninety-one from Lucrece and thirty-four from Venus and Adonis. About a quarter of the Shakespearean extracts are misquotations or adaptations. Identifying extracts was complicated because the compiler frequently adapted them to fit Belvedere’s ten syllable line format and topic headings and render them more universal in application. Crawford could not believe that Ling or Munday would engage in such mutilation and saw this as evidence that Bodenham was responsible for this adaptation.49 The extracts from Love’s Labour’s Lost in Appendix 2 demonstrate the aphoristic nature of the extracts and the anthologist’s adaptations. Recent critical interest in Belvedere (and Englands Parnassus) has concentrated on the fact that Shakespeare’s texts were used, drawing conclusions from that rather than focussing on what was used and the Shakespeare the anthologies created. Peter Stallybrass and Roger Chartier argue that Belvedere and Englands Parnassus are significant in demonstrating that by 1600 living English writers were regarded as suitable authorities on which to base an entire commonplace book, and no longer just to be compared to Classical authors as in Palladis Tamia.50 Whereas earlier printed commonplace books like Politeuphia and Palladis Tamia had used old Christian and Classical writers and a limited number of contemporary English writers, Belvedere and Englands Parnassus only took from contemporary English writers. Stallybrass and Chartier argue that through this use Shakespeare emerged as a ‘canonical English poet’ while accepting that the radical fragmentation of the texts together with their anonymity, in the case of Belvedere, worked against authorship as a category. They suggest the compiler of Belvedere (whom they assume was Bodenham) was influenced by the ‘already read’ text of
48 Crawford ‘Belvedere’, 205. 49 See Crawford 1910-11, 200. Earlier in The Shakspere Allusion Book he had thought Bodenham’s extracts were accurate and attributed to their writers and that ‘A.M.’ was responsible for omitting the author’s names and cutting and hacking them to fit the book’s plan. 50 Stallybrass and Chartier 2007. 44
Lucrece printed by Field in 1594. In this, they argue, commonplaces were marked with marginal quotation marks for readers to extract.51 They conclude that the, Bodenham-Meres-Ling-Munday-Allott project [had] astonishing rapid effects upon the publication of “reading” texts of plays that had been written for the commercial theater. Prior to 1600, no such play had ever been printed with commonplace markers […] But between 1600 and 1610, there was a remarkable transformation: out of 40 titles printed with commonplace markers, 29 were plays written by professional dramatists, mostly for the children’s companies but also for the Chamberlain’s Men/King’s Men.52
Their argument is undermined because the marking up of Lucrece, on which they rely, is limited and by no means all the marked passages were used in Belvedere. Field’s 1594 quarto has printed marginal quotation marks alongside a total of 39 lines in twelve locations and lines 244/5 are marked with a colon. The poem has 1855 lines. Belvedere took 91 passages from Lucrece and did use some of the marked passages but not all of them. Belvedere also takes a similar number of lines from Venus and Adonis (34) and a total of 88 lines from six Shakespeare plays, none of which had been marked with marginal quotation marks. Stallybrass developed these ideas in an essay with Zachary Lesser which links commonplace markers in printed play-texts to the transformation of professional drama into literature: not once before Bodenham and his circle began their project of vernacular commonplacing did any publisher or playwright think to print a professional play with English commonplaces marked by a change in font, commas or inverted commas; but immediately after the publication of Bel-vedere and England’s Parnassus, a wide range of authors, publishers and printers began to practice such commonplacing. Rather than leading this project of transforming professional plays into poetry worthy of standing alongside classical authorities, as has often been imagined, Jonson was only one player – an important one, to be sure – in the larger project initiated by the London Grocer.53
In arguing that Shakespeare was a self-consciously literary dramatist, Lukas Erne describes Englands Parnassus and Belvedere as ‘literary anthologies’. He argues that both used extracts from public theatre plays alongside passages from more ‘literary’ poets and that this indicates that such plays, including Shakespeare’s,
51 Ibid., 47. 52 Ibid., 53. 53 Lesser and Stallybrass 2008, 399. 45 were considered ‘literature’.54 Erne presumably takes ‘literary anthologies’ to mean anthologies derived from literature rather than being literature in their own right, which renders this part of his argument tautological. Lesser and Stallybrass agree with Erne that literary status was being asserted for professional drama far earlier than the 1616 Jonson or the 1623 Shakespeare folios; unlike Erne they do not think this stems from the author writing for readers and attempting to raise the literary respectability of play texts but argue that literary drama ‘emerged primarily through the activity of readers, not authors, beginning with the circle of John Bodenham’.55 They also disagree with Erne as to the nature of literary drama, claiming that what matters ‘is the ability of an emergent vernacular literature to reproduce the timeless and impersonal authority attributed to sententiae in classical texts’. Thus for Erne Q1 Hamlet is a theatrical not a literary text whereas to Stallybrass and Lesser, with its marked commonplaces, it is ‘Shakespeare’s first literary drama’. Erne, in response, revisited his arguments on Shakespeare as literary dramatist to question Stallybrass and Chartier’s assertion that the literary or ‘authorial’ Shakespeare popular at the time was Shakespeare the poet rather than Shakespeare the dramatist.56 Erne’s argument that Shakespeare was well ahead of his contemporaries in popularity is based on ‘bibliographical presence’ since his texts dominated the number of playbooks printed which named the author on the title- page. Erne focusses on 1600 arguing that Shakespeare ‘had a remarkable presence in the London book trade at the turn of the seventeenth century’ with nine books published plus extracts in Englands Parnassus, Belvedere and Englands Helicon.57 The relatively small proportion of Shakespeare extracts in these anthologies and the imbalance between extracts from plays and from the narrative poems undermines Erne’s argument. Assuming that the anthologists took their Shakespeare extracts from editions in print by the end of 1599 (which is uncertain), in addition to the two narrative poems and Pilgrim, the Shakespeare plays available were 1 Henry IV, 2Henry VI, Titus Andronicus, 3Henry VI, Edward III, Richard II, Richard III, Love’s Labour’s Lost and Romeo and Juliet. Of the three anthologies Belvedere uses the most Shakespeare extracts (237) and in Belvedere Shakespeare is the most excerpted
54 Erne, 2003, 71. 55 Lesser and Stallybrass, 2008, 414. 56 Erne, 2009, 12-29, 57 Ibid., 13. First editions of H5, MA, 2H5, MND, MV, second editions of 2H6, 3H6, fourth and fifth editions of Luc. plus extracts in Englands Parnassus, Belvedere and Englands Helicon. 46 dramatist. However only about half of the Shakespeare extracts (135) are taken from seven of the nine Shakespeare plays in print at the end of 1599 whereas 125 are taken from the two narrative poems.58 There is no apparent correlation between use of play extracts and the ‘popularity’ of the play in terms of reprints.59 Most extracts (47) are taken from the joint most ‘popular’ play Richard II, and least extracts (1) are taken from the other joint most popular play 1 Henry IV. An early reader of Richard II, William Scott, also found that play a useful source of illustrative quotation.60 While Belvedere would support Erne’s arguments best statistically, the use of his extracts in this anthology is not on a scale that could reasonably be described as unrivalled by his contemporaries, indeed it is not even readily apparent that Shakespeare is used since the extracts are unattributed. Englands Parnassus makes considerably less use of Shakespeare’s texts and he ranks ninth among the fifty or so writers whose texts are plundered. There are 95 extracts from Shakespeare with twice as many (65) from the two narrative poems as from the plays. Here only five of the nine plays available in print are used and again there is no particular correlation between popularity and the number of extracts – the most extracts (13) are from Romeo and Juliet and the least (2) from 1 Henry IV. Englands Helicon takes only one Shakespeare extract. The evidence of these three anthologies would suggest that as a man in print in 1600 Shakespeare was primarily recognised and valued as a poet rather than as a dramatist and was not pre-eminent but one among many. This is supported by the contemporary treatment of Belvedere in The Second Part of The Return from Parnassus, a university play dating from c.1601-3.61 In the
58 Including extracts from Edward III. 59 Available in print No.of editions published at the end of 1599: by the end of 1599: E3 2 [ Q1, Q2] LLL 2 [ Q0, Q1] RJ 2 [ Q1, Q2] IH4 3 [ Q0,Q1,Q2] 2H6 1 [ Q1] 3H6 1 [ Q1] R2 3 [ Q1,Q2,Q3] R3 2 [ Q1,Q2] Tit 1 [ Q1]
60 Stanley Wells, ‘A new early reader of Shakespeare’ in Shakespeare’s Book: Essays in Reading, Writing and Reception, ed. Richard Meek et al. (Manchester: MUP, 2008), 233-240. 61 Published as The Retourne From Pernassus: Or The scourge of Simony (London:1606). See Leishman. 47 play Ingenioso, a former university student and would-be author, and Iudicio, a press-corrector, discuss Belvedere in mocking terms. Iudicio carries a copy of the book. The play quotes extensively from Belvedere’s prefatory material indicating that the playwright was familiar with the book and a copy was probably a stage prop. For the jokes to work, Belvedere must have been a publishing success well-known to the audience of university students. Lesser and Stallybrass suggest that the play revives the complaints that Nashe launched a decade earlier against non-university educated playwrights in his 1598 preface to Greene’s Menaphon, continued by Greene, most famously in Greenes Groatsworth of Wit (1592). Bodenham is guilty of gathering the lines of ‘Crowes’ (non-university writers with an allusion to the ‘upstart crow’ Shakespeare) who have themselves stolen their lines from their betters. Lesser and Stallybrass suggest that the thrust of the humour in the scene, where Ingenioso and Iudicio ‘censure’ contemporary poets, attacks Bodenham, and that Ingenioso and Judicio are appalled by a book packed with extracts from non- university poets compiled by a non-university man. The ‘lousy beggarly Pamphlet[s]’ that this new breed of (non-university) writers are producing are bad enough in Iuidicio’s eyes but he could ‘better endure’ these ‘if they would keepe them from these English flores-poetarum’, that is, exclude them from anthologies.62 But perhaps the audience is being invited to laugh at Ingenioso and Iudicio who are fighting a rear-guard action. Iudicio advises Ingenioso to ‘sheath his pen’ because his ‘enemies’ have the advantage in the battle to be published but it may be that the joke is now at the expense of the old attitudes expounded by Nashe and Greene. In this play, as in Belvedere, Shakespeare appears as just one among many contemporary poets and in his defence reference is made only to the narrative poems. Who loues not Adons loue, or Lucrece rape? His sweeter verse contaynes hart robbing lines Could but a grauer subiect him content, Without loues foolish lazy languishment.63
62 Lesser and Stallybrass 2008. 63 Leishman, 244. [ 1.2 TLN 301-304]. Later in The Second Return [4.3. TLN 1766-1773] Shakespeare is considered as a playwright and superior to the ‘university men’ praised, but the joke is that his appraisers, shown to be uneducated, are his fellow Chamberlain’s men Burbage and Kempe. Kempe remarks: Few of the vniuersity [men] pen plaies well, they smell too much of that writer Ovid, and that writer Metamorphoses, and talk too much of Proserpina & Iuppiter. Why heres our fellow Shakespeare puts them all downe, I and Ben Iohnson too. O that Ben Iohnson is a pestilent fellow, he brought vp Horace giuing the Poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath giuen him a purge that made him beray his credit. 48
As outlined, Belvedere has been used to support arguments for the early elevation of English drama to literature, for Shakespeare’s popularity and status as a ‘canonical English poet’ and as a ‘literary dramatist’ by 1600. The preface to Belvedere lists, in order of social rank, the writers whose texts are used, starting with poems, songs and speeches from the royal court including the Queen and King James of Scotland. In the lower echelons Shakespeare is named as one of twenty-five ‘Moderne and extant Poets’. Crawford comments ‘Very little attention need be bestowed on the list of authors, for it is not only inaccurate and misleading but seems to have been drawn up at random’.64 Arguably, Belvedere does not create a ‘Shakespeare’; his texts are unattributed, scattered and frequently adapted by the anthologist. Apart from including his name in the preface, Shakespeare remains hidden and consequently the anthology is not helpful in evaluating Shakespeare’s literary and dramatic reputation at the time. What Belvedere does do is demonstrate that the anthologist thought of Shakespeare as a contemporary poet, but one among many, and that his texts, primarily the poems rather than the plays, were suitable for plucking ‘excellent flowres’ and converting them into ‘most learned graue and wittie sentences’ or commonplaces. The Shakespeare created is essentially a creator of and source of aphorisms, similes or commonplaces.
Englands Parnassus, 1600
The Shakespeare simultaneously created by another commonplace book anthology, Englands Parnassus, is more complex. Robert Allott was linked to Politeuphia and is widely believed to be the anthologist behind Englands Parnassus.65 It is not clear whether Englands Parnassus was part of the ‘Bodenham-
In The First Part of the Return from Parnassus there is reference to Shakespeare’s plays when Gullio, a foolish character, as his name suggests, repeatedly refers to and attempts to imitate Romeo and Juliet. Ingenioso suggests Gullio has obtained his Shakespeare via the theatre: ‘We shall haue nothing but pure Shakspeare, and shreds of poetrie that he hath gathered at the theators’ (Leishman, 183). In this scene Ingenioso is asked by Gullio to compose verses for his mistress ‘in two or three diuers vayns, in Chauvers, Gowers and Spencers, and Mr Shakspeares.’ (Leishman 185). Although Shakespeare is linked here with these canonical poets, arguably the addition of ‘Mr’ Shakespeare’s is used for bathetic effect and the fact that is it Gullio who enthuses about ‘sweet Mr Shakspeare’ also diminishes his status. 64 Crawford 1910-11, 200. 65 Allott probably composed the Latin Decastichon for Politeuphia which is attributed ‘R.A.’. 49
Meres-Ling-Munday-Allott project’ or an independent venture. Crawford finds evidence of haste, and suggests that Allott may have been racing to publish a rival publication ahead of Belvedere.66 The title seems designed to link it, or perhaps confuse it, with Englands Helicon. The Stationers’ Register indicates that Englands Helicon, Belvedere and Englands Parnassus were entered on the register on 4 August, 11 August and 2 October 1600 respectively, so were presumably all in preparation at the same time. Crawford describes Parnassus as ‘a bad piece of work’ and complains that ‘the inclusion of much bad poetry’ indicates Allott’s lack of taste. Crawford considers the anthology ‘an honest book’, but completed by ‘an incompetent man who had to contend with a careless printer who took no interest in his work’.67 I disagree: the 1600 octavo is attractive to handle and clearly printed. Englands Parnassus organises extracts from a range of contemporary English writers under topical headings. According to Crawford there are a total of 2,350 extracts. Most are attributed but Crawford notes that 68 are unsigned and 111 wrongly attributed. Topics are again arranged alphabetically beginning with ‘Angells’ and ending with ‘Youth’. There is a significant amount of Shakespeare in Parnassus, although he ranks ninth among the fifty-plus authors used (see Appendix 3) with considerably fewer extracts (95) than Spenser (389), Drayton (221), Warner (169), Lodge (144) and Daniel (140). Appendix 3 lists the Shakespeare extracts. As in Belvedere, the compiler drew mainly on the two narrative poems, taking thirty- nine extracts from Lucrece and twenty-six from Venus and Adonis. From the plays there are three extracts from Love’s Labour’s Lost, seven from Richard II, five from Richard III, two from I Henry IV and thirteen from Romeo and Juliet. These extracts vary in length from one or two lines to twenty-plus. Just under a third (30) comprise one or two lines, approximately half (49) are between three and ten lines and a small but significant minority (7) contain over ten lines. Allott adapted texts but his touch is lighter than the Belvedere anthologist’s. He did not impose a strait-jacket of ‘none but lineall and couplet sentences’ and often allowed the verse to escape from his commonplace book structure. Titles and headings direct the interpretation of the Shakespearean extracts and convert fragments of poems or dramatic dialogue into universal statements on a topic. Occasionally words are changed to fit Allott’s context. For example, an extract from
66 Crawford 1913, xiii. 67 Crawford 1913, xii, ix, xxxix. 50
Venus and Adonis (331-336) substituted ‘sorrow’ with the words ‘griefe it’ to match the topic heading ‘Grief’; An oven that is stopt, or Riuer staid, Burneth more hotely, swelleth with more rage: So of concealed Griefe it may be said, Free vent of words, loves fier doth assuage, But, when hearts atturney is mute, The Client breaks, as desperate in his sute. (p.123, sig. I6r).
In the section ‘Words’ consecutive speeches from Richard III (4.4. 126-131) are elided; Allott took the final word from the Duchess of York’s line ‘Why should calamity be full of words?’ and joined it to Queen Elizabeth’s reply: ---Words Windie atturnies of our clyent woes Ayery succeeders of intestate joyes, Poore breathing orators of miseries. Let them have scope, though what it doth impart Helpe not at all, yet doth ease the heart. (p.307, sig.X2r).
In the following example Allott combined lines from different texts to create his commonplace, but this is unusual. Softe pittie enters at an iron gate Mercie but murder, pardoning those that kill (sig. O3v, p.207, (Luc. 595 and R&J. 3.1.195)
Most extracts are fairly short although they vary in length from one line to fifty-plus lines and the longer passages look like poems. About two thirds of the way through the book, at signature Y2v, the organisation changes: the commonplace book format is abandoned and the final section, Miscellanea, resembles a collection of poems. First is a patchwork poem under the title ‘The diuision of the day naturall’ divided into ‘stanzas’ with Latin titles like ‘Meridies’, ‘Vesper’ and ‘Noctis’. There follows a number of ‘Poeticall Descriptions’ where extracts tend to be longer. Allott gave them titles, sometimes with the ‘Of’ prefix in the commonplace style, but often without, as in ‘Disdaine’, ‘Venus’, and ‘August’. At signature Ccr, under the title ‘Descriptions of Beautie and personage’, Allott linked passages from Sidney, Spenser, Watson, Lodge, Chapman, Shakespeare, Nashe, Peele, Daniel, Greene and others. Rather than being driven by a fixed organisational discipline to present commonplaces, Allott responded to the aesthetic merit of his selected extracts as
51 much as to the sentence or maxim they convey and as his prefatory poem indicated, he allowed them to speak for themselves: I hang no iuie out to sell my Wine, The nectar of good witts will sell itself.
Crawford was wrong to dismiss Englands Parnassus as ‘a dictionary of quotations rather than an anthology’; it sits on the cusp between a commonplace book and the ‘traditional’ poetry anthology.68 Allott’s layout and use of titles distinguishes the book from commonplace books like Belvedere and Politeuphia. He allowed his selections more breathing space on the page; whereas the pages of Belverdere and Politeuphia resemble pages from modern dictionaries of quotations, the pages in Englands Parnassus look more like pages from a modern poetry anthology. Allott’s full title is Englands Parnassus: Or The choysest Flowers of our Moderne Poets, with their Poeticall comparisons. Descriptions of Bewties, Personages, Castle, Pallaces, Mountaines, Groues, Seas, Springs, Riuers &c. Whereunto are annexed other various discourse both pleasaunt and profitable. This indicates where his real interest lay, as does the different inner title at the head of the main text which provides the anthology’s running title: ‘The Choysest Flowers of our Moderne English Poets’. Allott seems more interested in collecting the ‘choysest flowers’ of contemporary English poets than in collecting ‘sentences’. Crawford’s sterling efforts allow us to see that Allott used many of the same writers as Belvedere.69 Almost all the extracts are attributed. To some extent the extracted writers retained ownership of their texts through attribution, but it is a part- ownership with Allott who extracted and manipulated their texts to create his own anthology containing three types of material. Very short extracts are chosen for the maxim they express or for a felicity of expression, longer extracts may appear as discrete poems, and fragments from several writers’ texts are grouped to create patchwork poems. On the page the authorial attributions work against this but read aloud these patchwork poems emerge as discrete units.70
68 Crawford 1913, xiii. 69 Crawford lists the authors/works that he was able to identify and the number of extracts from each in two of his articles in Notes and Queries (s.10 XI, 5June1909, 443-445 and s.10 XI 26 June 1909, 502-503). See Appendix 3. 70 This became apparent when I listened to an audio recording of a performance of the ‘Love’ section from England’s Parnassus that comprised part of a longer performance ‘Sparks of Living Fire’ at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London. This was part of the Globe’s ‘Read Not Dead’ series of staged readings and took place on Sunday 24th May 2009. The programme for the performance was selected by the Globe’s Director of Education, Patrick Spottiswoode, co-ordinated by director Heather Davies 52
Shakespeare’s texts are used in the three ways outlined. An example of a short axiomatic commonplace is Some griefe shewes much of loue, But much to griefe shewes still some want of wit. sig. I6v, p.124. (R&J, 3.5.72/3)
Other examples, such as this from Romeo and Juliet, show Allott selecting passages for their beauty of expression: O shee dothe teach the torches to burn bright It seems she hangs vpon the cheeke of night As a rich iewell in an Ethiops eare, Beauty to rich for vse, for earth too deare: So shows a snowy Doue trooping with crowes, As yonder lady ore her fellowes shows. sig. Dd4r, p.407. (R&J, 1.5.42-8)
Most of the longer extracts are from Lucrece but two are from Richard II. Under the title ‘Of Albion’ (signature Z6v/p.348) Allott uses part of John of Gaunt’s ‘This royal throne of kings…’ speech, (R2 2.1.40-55) mistakenly attributed to ‘M.Dr.’ (Michael Drayton) . This marks the first time that these famous lines were used in a printed anthology. Above Shakespeare’s lines under the same title are four lines from Daniel Faire Albion glorie of the North, Neptune’s best darling held between his armes, Diuided from the world, as better worth, Kept from himselfe, defended from all armes.
Together the two extracts can be read as a single ‘poem’. In the section on ‘Death’
and performed by four professional actors: Tim Danish, Melanie McHugh, Laura Rees and James Wallace. The extracts selected were parts of the first sestiad of Marlowe’s Hero and Leander, three ‘sonnets’ from Romeo and Juliet, The Passionate Pilgrim, 1599 and the section ‘Loue’ from Englands Parnassus (sig. M5vv-8v). The reading of the long extract from Englands Parnassus, was shared by four actors. Andy Kesson’s programme notes made clear that this was a selection of ‘excerpts organised under the theme of love’ made up of ‘tiny snippets from a variety of poets’. The notes suggested that Englands Parnassus ‘invites its readers to re-edit the words it presents.’ Ironically in performance the ostensibly unpromising material in Englands Parnassus was often‘re-edited’ by its performers and listeners with felicitous results. The first three passages in the reading, two from Spenser and one from Lodge were read by the same male actor and ran together to comprise one ‘poem (sig. M5v). A similar effect was achieved with a series of extracts from Churchyard, Chapman, Warner and Marlowe (sig. N1v) and by eliding together two extracts from Watson and Sidney (N2r). Other passages of very short extracts shared by two readers seemed to the listener like a conversation or disputation with the speakers trying to outdo one another (sig. N3v-N4r and M6v). Occasionally the actor’s tone introduced a note of (anachronistic) humour where perhaps the poet had intended none and the use of male and female voices prevented an exclusively masculine point of view, otherwise inevitable with a selection taken exclusively from sixteenth-century male poets. 53
Fig.2 Extract from John of Gaunt’s speech from Richard II in Englands Parnassus
54
(signature E3v/p.54) Allott used a longish extract from another of John of Gaunt’s speeches: ‘…the toongs of dying men …Writ in remembrance more then things long past’ (R2, 2.1.5-14). In these longer passages from Shakespeare (and from the other writers) Allott responded aesthetically to the poetry. Englands Parnassus created a different Shakespeare from the one created by Belvedere. Like Belvedere, Parnassus used extracts exclusively from contemporary English ‘poets’, which term included dramatists, but because Parnassus attributed them its significance in raising the status of the vernacular literature and of the individual poets was greater. Allott mixed extracts that are commonplaces with extracts that are ‘poems’ from all the writers he used, including Shakespeare, so the Shakespeare his anthology created is both a source of aphorisms and commonplaces and a lyric poet. What he is not is a dramatist, since source texts are not indicated and the extracts from plays are presented as poems or commonplaces. The Shakespeare texts most used are, again, Lucrece and Venus and Adonis. As in Belvedere, Shakespeare is one of ‘our Moderne Poets’ but he remains in the ranks and is far from prominent. Englands Parnassus creates a Shakespeare who is a provider of aphoristic commonplaces, but because the anthologist responded sensitively to the verse and often used longer extracts, he also created a Shakespeare who is a lyric poet with exquisite aesthetic qualities of expression.
Englands Helicon, 1600.
Englands Helicon created a variant ‘lyric poet Shakespeare’: a minor participant in late-sixteenth-century pastoral love poetry. The anthology is widely considered one of the finest of the Elizabethan poetical miscellanies and important for first publishing Marlowe’s ‘The Passionate Shepherd to his Love’, although a version of this poem, generally considered inferior, had been included in the slightly earlier The Passionate Pilgrim.71 Englands Helicon’s unknown anthologist collected pastoral lyrics from a range of poets and the anthology fits ‘traditional’ notions of what an anthology is.72 The anthology’s title and the project assert that contemporary English poets can be favourably compared with the classical poets. There are one hundred and fifty poems in the 1600 edition, taken from thirty-three contemporary
71 At sig.Aa,1v-2r. 72 See Appendix 4 for a discussion of the anthologist’s identity and his concerns regarding attribution. 55
English poets, with Sidney, Bartholomew Young, Greene, Breton, Lodge and Munday each contributing more than five poems (see Appendix 4). As it is a collection of pastoral poems it is not surprising that the compiler should take a good deal of material from Sidney’s Arcadia, Greene’s Menaphon and Lodge’s Rosalynde and if selected poems did not have a title or the original titles did not suit his theme the anthologist supplied new ‘pastoral’ titles and frequently adapted the poems themselves to match his pastoral theme. Englands Helicon seems to have been aimed at a more ‘up-market’ purchaser or one that would like to be thought so. The dedicatees, Bodenham and the two friends of A.B. are not of especially high status, but a magnificent coat of arms, presumably that of Bodenham, has been inserted and a classical tag added to the title-page to lend class. Whereas the other anthologies in the ‘Bodenham project’ are tightly crammed octavos, possibly to cut costs and/or to function as pocket reference books, Helicon is a quarto and generously and elegantly formatted. The poems are attributed either with a name, initial or ‘Ignoto’ and in one case, the nom de plume ‘Sheepheard Tonie’. All are given a title and separated by ‘FINIS’ and a line across the page. The British Library’s copy of Englands Helicon (1600) was owned by Frances Wolfreston, the wife of an estate owner in Staffordshire. 73 Signature B1r at the left-hand margin is inscribed ‘Frances/Wolfreston/her book’ and other marginalia in the same hand suggest that she used the book as a songbook. On sig. Y3r in the right hand margin is written ‘Tune of crimson veluet’ against the lyric ‘Faire Phillis and her Sheepheard’ and in the left-hand margin on sig. Y4v against the next lyric is written ‘same tune74. A second edition of Englands Helicon expressly marketed as a collection of songs was published in 1614 by Richard More. The title was Englands Helicon or The Muses Harmony and the title-page carried this couplet: The courts of kings heare no such straines As daily lull the Rusticke Swaines.
73 This copy (shelfmark C.39.3.48) demonstrates the care that the printer/publisher has taken to ensure correct attribution. Tiny correction slips are pasted over the names in five instances.These slips change the original attributions to ‘Ignoto’ in four cases and from Sidney to Breton in a fifth. 74 See Roberts 2003a, 45-7 and 50-3 for a discussion of Frances Wolfreston’s reading. 56
New front matter comprised a dedicatory sonnet to Lady Elizabeth Carey (signed by Richard More) and ‘A Table of all the Songs and Pastorals, with the Authors names, contained in this book’. There are nine additional poems added to this edition.75 There is only one ‘genuine’ extract from Shakespeare in Helicon, Dumaine’s ‘On a day, (alacke the day)…’ (Love’s Labour’s Lost 4.3.99-118) at signature H1r.76 Here it is ‘The passionate Sheepheards Song’ and a conventional pastoral lyric. Englands Helicon tends, with minor typographical variations, to follow The Passionate Pilgrim’s version of this ‘sonnet’ rather than Q1 Love’s Labour’s Lost. In line 2 ‘is’ in Q1 becomes ‘was’ and in line 12 ‘throne’ in Q1 and Pilgrim becomes ‘thorne’ in Helicon, presumably a compositor’s or scribe’s error though both words make sense and ‘thorn’ is the choice of the editors of both Arden 2 and Arden 3 editions of the play – it has a more pastoral turn to it.77 Two lines ‘Do not call it sinne in me,/That I am forsworne for thee’ are omitted in both the Helicon and Pilgrim versions after line 13, presumably because these are lines that link the ‘poem’ to the action of the play. In line 7 ‘louer’ is changed to ‘Sheepheard’ to fit the anthologist’s pastoral aim.
Given the relatively extensive use of Shakespeare’s texts in Englands Parnassus and Belvedere it is perhaps surprising to find only one Shakespeare extract in Englands Helicon. If the anthologies were conceived as a series, it is possible that those behind it did not want to use the same material in two books, although Belvedere recycles material from the other ‘Bodenham project’ collections Politeuphia and Wits Theater. Englands Helicon suggests that in 1600 Shakespeare did not immediately come to mind as a ‘pastoral’ poet. The Shakespeare text used in England’s Helicon originates from the only Shakespeare play then in print that is nearest to a ‘pastoral’. Subjected to the anthologist’s manipulation, the ‘poem’
75 Ignoto, ‘Dispraise of loue and louers follies’ (sig.P2r); Sidney, ‘Two pastorals upon three friends meeting’ (sig. P5v); Ignoto, ‘An Heroicall Poeme’ (sig.Q1r); Ignoto, ‘The louers absence kils me…’ (sig.Q3v); Ignoto .‘Loue the only price of loue’ (sig.Q6v); Ignoto, ‘A defiance to disdainefull love’and W. Brown, ‘Thirsis praise of his mistress’ (sig.R1r); Christopher Brook, ‘An Epithalamium’ (sig.R1v). 76 Three ‘Shakespeare’ poems from Pilgrim also used in Englands Helicon are grouped together after this sonnet. They are ‘My flocks feed not’ (PP17) titled ‘The unknowne Sheepheards complaint’ (sig. H1v) and ‘As it fell vpon a day’ (PP20) titled ‘Another of the same Sheepheards’ (sig. H2r). Both are attributed ‘Ignoto’. Another version of Marlowe’s ‘Come liue with mee and be my loue’ (PP19), is used later, correctly attributed to him. 77 Love’s Labour’s Lost, ed., Richard David (London: Methuen, 1956) Arden 2; Love’s Labour’s Lost, ed., H.R. Woudhuysen (Walton-on-Thames: Nelson, 1998) Arden 3. 57 creates for the reader a Shakespeare who is a lyric poet of pastoral love poetry, very similar to the lyric poet created by Jaggard’s The Passionate Pilgrim.
III Loves Martyr, 1601
Robert Chester’s Loves Martyr is remembered, if at all, for first printing an untitled poem by Shakespeare now known as The Phoenix and Turtle.78 Barbara Everett described this poem as ‘little known’ and ‘little read’, a curious claim for a poem that since the seventeenth century has repeatedly featured in editions of Shakespeare and anthologies of poetry.79 The anthology Loves Martyr, however, is little known and little read. It was published twice in Shakespeare’s lifetime in 1601 and 1611 (when unsold copies of the 1601 edition were repackaged under a new title);80 since then opportunities to read Shakespeare’s poem in its original context have been severely limited. The title-pages to Loves Martyr and the appended ‘poeticall essaies’ indicate that the contributions by Shakespeare and the other poets, described as ‘new compositions’ and ‘neuer before extant’, were written specifically for the anthology. This reverses the usual anthology process whereby passages from extant texts are lifted from their original authorial context and re-sited by an anthologist. Paradoxically, The Phoenix and Turtle, commissioned and written for a collaborative anthology and intended to be read in that context, has been transformed by anthologists, editors, and critics into a standalone poem. I first outline the emergence of Phoenix as an independent poem and its critical reception and then consider Loves Martyr as an anthology and the Shakespeare it created. The Phoenix and Turtle began its independent life in 1640 when it was extracted from Loves Martyr by John Benson and used in his Poems: Written by Wil. Shake-speare, Gent. In this anthology Benson re-packaged Shakespeare’s sonnets, The Passionate Pilgrim of 1612 and other ‘Shakespearean’ poems (see Appendix 5).
78Robert Chester, Loves Martyr: or Rosalins Complaint (London, 1601). Shakespeare’s poem acquired its title in 1807 when it was named in an early American Complete Works. It has generally been known since as either The Phoenix and the Turtle, or The Phoenix and Turtle. 79Barbara Everett, ‘Set upon a Golden Bough to sing’, TLS, 16 February 2001, 13. 80 See Appendix 5 for bibliographical details. 58
Benson’s anthology was transferred to eighteenth-century editions of Shakespeare. In Gildon’s Volume the Seventh supplement to Rowe’s 1709 edition of Shakespeare Benson’s anthology was effectively reproduced, and Phoenix appears in ‘Poems on Several Occasions’. Malone published Shakespeare’s poems in Volume X of The plays and poems of William Shakspeare (1790) and used Phoenix (untitled) in its original Loves Martyr format, noting its origins in Chester’s anthology.81 In the nineteenth century and beyond The Phoenix and Turtle has been preserved as a standalone poem in Complete Works, in editions of Shakespeare’s poems and in numerous poetry anthologies. Critics have struggled to come to terms with The Phoenix and Turtle, finding it ‘the most mysterious poem in English’, ‘a difficult poem…that seems so self- contained that it is impregnable’, ‘exquisite but baffling’, ‘cryptic and enigmatic [but] brilliant and beautiful’.82 Barbara Everett commented that ‘the reader halts, never quite sure what it is to read this poem. We seem, even while finding it exquisite, to lack some expertise, some password’.83 It is often described as a poet’s poem. Emerson placed it in the category of poetry for ‘bards proper’ rather than ‘poetry for the world of readers’ when he remarked, ‘This poem if published for the first time, and without a known author’s name would find no general reception. Only the poets would save it’.84 John Middleton Murry echoed this view: But there is a poetry that may almost be called absolute. The Phoenix and the Turtle belongs to this kind of poetry. It is the direct embodiment, through symbols that are necessarily dark, of a pure, comprehensive and self- satisfying experience, which we may call, if we please, an immediate intuition into the hidden nature of things. It is inevitable that such poetry should be obscure, mystical and strictly unintelligible: it is too abstract for our comprehension, too essential, too little mediated. There is not much poetry of this kind; because it is too personal and too esoteric to gain the general ear. And it necessarily hovers between the condition of being the highest poetry of all and not being poetry at all.85
81 Malone presented it as poem XVIII of The Passionate Pilgrim. He removed PP1 and PP2 as they had effectively been printed elsewhere with the Sonnets and omitted PP8, PP20 and PP19 because he knew these to be by Barnfield and Marlowe. He also added ‘Take, O take those lips away’. 82 I. A. Richards, ‘The Sense of Poetry: Shakespeare’s “The Phoenix and the Turtle”’, Daedalus, 87.3 (1958), 86-94, 86; A. Alvarez, ‘The Phoenix and Turtle’ in John Wain, ed. Interpretations (London: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1955) 1-16, 3; William Empson, ‘The Phoenix and Turtle’, Essays in Criticism, XVI (2) (1966), 147-153, 147; Everett; John Middleton Murry, ‘The Nature of Poetry’, Discoveries (London: W. Collins & Sons,1924), 13-44, 43. 83 Everett,13. 84 R.W. Emerson, Parnassus (Boston MA: J.R. Osgood, 1875), vi. 85 John Middleton Murry, 43. 59
In 1958 I. A. Richards noted that the poem had ‘engendered curiosity and praise only in relatively recent times’.86 This may result from the twentieth century’s appreciation of the ‘metaphysical poets’. Placed alongside other metaphysical poems - it is often compared with Donne’s The Canonization - Shakespeare’s poem seems at home; but it also seems strange and modern. Isolating the poem from Loves Martyr has increased its strangeness and enhanced its attraction. Barbara Everett sees Phoenix as a micro-anthology, three ‘poems’ in one: constructed in three sections, like a nest of boxes - it might even be said to earn itself the phrase found in the “Threnos” here, and elsewhere in Elizabethan court poetry as the title of a collection, “The Phoenix’Nest”. Its second section is an inset of its first, and its third an inset of its second […] The first section, or Invocation, runs to five stanzas, the second or Anthem to eight, the third or Threnos (“Lament”) to five again; of these, the Anthem flows out of the Invocation, which uses the first line of the sixth stanza as introduction, a fine irregular ripple effect which gives liquidity. Again the poem is metrically divided, and with almost baroque imbalance: the first thirteen stanzas are quatrains, the last five are three lined verses. The quatrains rhyme ABBA, the three lined stanzas AAA.87
Ultimately Everett finds the poem ‘cryptic and enigmatic’ and that Shakespeare writes ‘nowhere else – not even in his last plays – quite like this’. 88 Reading Shakespeare’s poem within the anthology Loves Martyr gives the reader a narrative and allegorical framework for the poem which both aids and limits interpretation, but even in its original context the poem remains oblique. Almost nothing is known about Robert Chester. Charles R. Forker’s entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography suggests that he may have been a member of Sir John Salusbury’s household, possibly chaplain or secretary.89 His only other extant verses are manuscript lyrics on members of Salusbury’s family.90 Forker interprets Loves Martyr as a celebration of Salusbury’s marriage in 1586 to Ursula Stanley and the birth of their first child in 1587, believing that the work owes its ‘mournful tone and funereal emphasis’ to the execution of Salusbury’s brother in 1586 for his involvement in the Babington Plot, shortly before their wedding. This persuasive theory assumes that the bulk of the text (‘Rosalin’s Complaint’ and ‘A Dialogue’) was written in the 1580s as an epithalamium. Why Chester decided to
86 Richards, 86. 87 Everett, 13. 88 Ibid. 89 See Charles R. Forker, ‘Chester Robert (fl c. 1586-1604)’DNB online < www.oxforddnb.com>. 90 Christ Church Oxford, MS 184. They have been printed: Poems by Sir John Salusbury and Robert Chester, ed., Carleton Brown (London: EETS, 1914). 60 add to Loves Martyr, dedicate it to Salusbury in 1601 and have it printed remains a mystery.91 The Phoenix and Turtle offers a multiplicity of readings. These were surveyed by R.A. Underwood in 1974 and, more recently, summarized by John Roe in his edition of The Poems and, again, by Barbara Everett.92 There have been three lines of approach: allegorical/historical readings which link the poem back to the circumstances of its original publication; philosophical readings that debate the nature of love; and more recently, readings that relate the poem to Shakespeare’s development as a writer. The words ‘allegorically shadowing’ on the title-page of Loves Martyr have led critics to read Shakespeare’s poem as an historical or personal allegory. The phoenix and the turtle are thought to represent Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Essex,93 or the Earl and Countess of Bedford94. Others think the Phoenix represents Elizabeth with differing ideas as to the significance of the turtle.95 The phoenix and the turtle have been taken to relate to the life of Chester’s patron, the two birds representing John Salusbury and his wife.96 Some, like Forker, date the writing of the main part of the anthology as early as the 1580s to celebrate, variously, Salusbury’s marriage, the birth of his first child or to mourn the death of his brother. Whenever it was compiled, Loves Martyr was printed in 1601, perhaps to celebrate Sir John’s recent knighthood or to garner support when he was involved in an expensive lawsuit and standing for election to parliament. While Honigmann argues that Shakespeare’s contribution may also date from the 1580s, most critics think that the writers of the ‘poetical essays’ were solicited for their contributions in 1600/1601.97
91 See E.A.J. Honigman, Shakespeare: The Lost Years (Manchester: MUP, 1998), 96-8; and The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare, ed. Michael Dobson and Stanley Wells (Oxford: OUP, 2001), 78. 92 R.A. Underwood, Shakespeare’s “The phoenix and the turtle”: a survey of scholarship (Saltzburg:Institut für Englische Sprache und Literatur, Universität of Salzburg, 1974); John Roe, The Poems (Cambridge: CUP, 1992); Everett. 93 See Alexander Grosart, Robert Chester’s Loves Martyr… (London: N. Trubner & Co, 1878); William H. Matchett, ‘The Phoenix and the Turtle’: Shakespeare’s Poem and Chester’s ‘Loves Martyr’ (London: Mouton, 1965); H. E. Rollins, ed., A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare, The Poems (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1938), 582-3. 94 Rollins, 582-3. 95 Marie Axton, ‘Miraculous Succession: The Phoenix and the Turtle (1601)’, The Queen’s Two Bodies: Drama and the Elizabethan Succession (London: Royal Historical Society, 1977), 116-30; Roy T. Erikson, ‘“Un certo amoroso martire”: Shakespeare’s “The Phoenix and the Turtle” and Giordano Bruno’s De Gli eroici furori’, Spenser Studies ,2 (1981), 193-215. 96 Carleton Brown. 97 Honigmann, op. cit. 61
Readings relating Phoenix to Shakespeare’s literary development vary. Frank Kermode sees the poem representing a critical moment in the development of Shakespeare’s art, and ‘evidence of a deep introspective concern in the semantics of identity’, supporting the notion that around 1600 a new inwardness, almost independent of dramatic necessity, had come upon Shakespeare.98 Patrick Cheney reads the poem as ‘about the politics of authorship itself’ where Shakespeare meditates on the conjunction of poetry and theatre and on being a poet/dramatist and in it pens his clearest ‘signature’ for his status as an early modern author of poems and plays: as national poet-playwright.99 James Bednarz sees Shakespeare reacting to Jaggard’s earlier unauthorised publication of his poetry, pro-actively seizing the opportunity of inclusion in Chester’s anthology and using his contribution to Loves Martyr to ‘take back control of his name as a poet in print’. Thus, Bednarz argues, Shakespeare created a new and different poetic persona to substitute for Jaggard’s representation of him in The Passionate Pilgrim as the erotically obsessed author of Love’s Labour’s Lost, Romeo and Juliet, and Venus and Adonis.100 Bednarz suggests this, is coded in the metrical idiom of trochaic tetrameter that represented him in England’s Helicon and that he now deployed in Love’s Martyr to re-define himself in print, by availing himself of the most avant-garde poetic style in manuscript circulation and linking his work with that of three of the most erudite ‘modern’ poet-playwrights.101
These critical approaches all tend to consider Phoenix as separate from Loves Martyr. They are concerned with Shakespeare’s intentions in the poem (what it is about) or how Shakespeare (not Chester) uses the poem to say something about himself. Although often acknowledging the desirability of reading Phoenix in the context of Loves Martyr, critics have generally failed to do this. Maurice Evans echoed many critics, commenting ‘Chester’s long and frequently absurd allegoric poem is not worth recognition for its own merits’ but he acknowledges that the anthology ‘must be considered because it set the form and provided the subject for the poems that were published with it’.102 Hyder E. Rollins thought Shakespeare’s poem ‘can scarcely be understood except in its context – if at all’ and Emerson
98 Frank Kermode, Shakespeare’s Language (London: Penguin, 2001), 70/71. 99 Cheney 2004, 174-197. 100 Bednarz 2007a , 117. 101 Ibid., 118. 102 The Narrative Poems, ed., Maurice Evans (London: Penguin, 1989), 48. 62 wondered if ‘the book [Loves Martyr] will suggest all the explanation this poem requires’.103 Bednarz begins to consider Shakespeare’s poem in its original context and raises the question of the Shakespeare that Loves Martyr presents. I will take this further and look at the anthology as a whole, Shakespeare’s part in it and the Shakespeare the anthologist creates. John Kerrigan describes Loves Martyr as ‘one of the hardest books to make sense of in Elizabethan literature’.104 Little in it tempts modern readers: the rambling, digressive structure and mix of material is alien and the verse mostly not very good. Modern readers need to know that in early modern literature the phoenix was a metaphor for any kind of special excellence, used in relation to religion and, more extensively, as representing the mistress in Petrarchan love poetry or the Queen. Readers also need to understand that the ‘turtle’ is not a reptile but a turtledove, the emblem of fidelity. The significance of ‘Rosalin’ is equally obscure. Patrick Cheney finds a ‘Spenserian dynamic’ in Loves Martyr, the name ‘Rosalind’ being Spenser’s invention.105 The name is often equated with the poet’s ‘beloved’ or Queen Elizabeth and used in the female complaint genre. Chester equates Rosalin and her complaint with Dame Nature: ‘Rosalin’s Complaint metaphorically applied to Dame Nature at parliament held (in the high star Chamber) by the Gods, for the preservation and increase of the Earth’s beauteous Phoenix’ (sig. B1r).
The title-page describes Loves Martyr as ‘A Poeme enterlaced with much varietie and raritie’, offering a first translation, a new poet’s ‘first essay’ and ‘new compositions’. This incongruous mix of material and its novelty is clearly promoted as an attraction. If it is ‘a poeme’ it is one sharply divided into several sections by horizontal lines across the page. Structurally, Loves Martyr is an anthology, albeit an unusual and unwieldy one, comprising a series of poems unified by subject-matter, the myth of the phoenix and the turtle-dove. I will summarise the content of Loves Martyr in the paragraphs that follow (see Appendix 5 for greater detail).
The anthology opens with ‘Rosalins Complaint’ in which Nature comes to Jove complaining that in creating the Phoenix (described in terms of a beautiful woman) she has created a creature so perfect that she fears it will never be able to
103 Emerson, vi. 104 John Kerrigan, ‘Shakespeare’s Poems’ in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare, ed,s. Margreta De Grazia and Stanley Wells (Cambridge: CUP, 2001), 65-81, 76. 105 Cheney 2004, 179. 63 replace itself to the same degree of perfection by its normal solitary method. Jove promises to provide an appropriate mate, and instructs Nature to take the Phoenix to Paphos where they will find a male turtle-dove, whose help will create an even more perfect phoenix. Two poems/prayers follow before a long poem ‘A meeting Dialogue between Nature, the Phoenix and the Turtle Dove’, during which Nature and the Phoenix fly to the Isle of Paphos. A long verse history of King Arthur is inserted at this point. An unsigned internal address to the reader (sig.F1v/F2r) explains this as the poet’s rendition of Arthur’s life. In fact it is interspersed with a translation from the Latin of Arthur’s epitaph and of speeches by historical figures connected to King Arthur. In the internal address Chester claims he was begged by some ‘honourable-minded friends’ to include this digressive passage and ‘not to let slip so good and fit an occasion’. Two short poems respond to the Arthurian verses before the ‘Dialogue’ resumes with Nature and the phoenix speaking about Nature’s works. Here the poet catalogues plants and trees (M1r-O1r), fishes (O2r-O2v), minerals (O3r-P2r), animals and birds (P2v-R2r). The dialogue continues as they arrive at Paphos to find the turtle-dove weeping for the loss of his mate. His grief is quickly dispelled by the ardour of the phoenix, and the two build a funeral pyre into which they ecstatically leap together. A separate section ‘Pellican’ follows in which a pelican, witness to the pyre, explains that the phoenix and the turtle-dove have perished in the flames but their offspring is born out of the ashes, combining the true love and the beauty of its parents as well as the sex of both:
From the sweet fire of perfumed wood Another princely Phoenix upright stood, Whose feathers purified did yeald more light Than his late buried mother out of sight, And in her heart restes a perpetual love Sprong from the bosom of the turtle dove. (sig.S3v)
In a ‘Conclusion’ section the main ‘poem’ in the anthology ends with fifty-six lines of couplets in the poet’s own voice. Then follow a number of ‘cantoes’ in two sets of acrostic verses. Finally, following a second inner title-page are the fourteen poems comprising ‘Diverse Poeticall Essaies … on the former subiect; viz the Turtle and Phoenix…’, which includes Shakespeare’s untitled poem ‘Let the bird of lowdest lay…’. The poets’ approach here appears to have been a collaborative effort, a natural way of working to the poets, Jonson, Shakespeare, Martston and Chapman,
64 who were all connected to the commercial theatre. This explains the thinking behind the two poems attributed to the ‘Vatum Chorus’ (a chorus or band of poets). Whether or not these poems had been written collaboratively by one or more of the poets the sentiment expressed is shared by the contributors. The ‘Poeticall Essaies’ has more cohesion as a mini-anthology than Loves Martyr as a whole, suggesting the contributors may have discussed and shared out responsibility for the content. As the secondary title-page indicates, the poems are linked by subject-matter: the Phoenix and the Turtle. They begin with the Vatum Chorus’ ‘Invocatio’, an appeal for inspiration to Apollo and the Pierides to ‘gratulate /An honourable friend’.106 The poets’ communal dedication to Salusbury follows, in which they claim ‘no mercenarie hope’ brought forth the verses, but ‘a true Zeale, borne in our spirites,/ Responsible to your high Merites’, and they hope that their verses are ‘worthy of our selues and you’. The following two short anonymous poems rehearse the myth of the uniqueness of the phoenix which ‘in single turns/ The world one Phoenix, till another burnes’ and ‘one Phoenix borne, another Phoenix burne’. Shakespeare’s poem follows and on a narrative level it relates back to Chester’s poem to describe the mourning rites for the phoenix and turtle. Marston’s four poems (assuming they have been grouped for attribution) describe and praise the phoenix, the perfect creature that arises from the phoenix and the turtle-dove’s funeral pyre. Next Chapman’s contribution praises the turtle-dove – the emblem of fidelity. Ben Jonson’s four poems (again assuming they have been grouped for attribution) are self-consciously modelled on classic forms. His sequence of poems begins with Praeludium (prelude) where he asks which of the gods he should call on for inspiration, finally deciding to rely on his own ‘true fire’ to sing his epode. His Epos, inspired by Horace, uses alternate lines of iambic pentameter and iambic trimeter to muse on the possibility of true love: It is a golden Chaine let down from Heauen, Whose links are bright, and euen That fals like Sleepe on Louers; and combines The softe and sweetest Minds In equal knots; (Sig.Aa4r)
106 ‘Pierides’ is an alternative term for the Muses. The ‘Thespian Deities’(l.1) refers to those associated with tragedy. 65
It moves on to consider the example of true love the phoenix and the turtle-dove embodied (‘But we propose a person like our Doue,| Grac’d with a Phoenix loue’) before considering the phoenix’s perfection in both appearance and character. The short poem which follows, The Phoenix Analysde, highlights the symbolism of the phoenix: ‘If a Bird so amiable/ Do turne into a Woman’. The mini-anthology ends with an ‘Ode’ in praise of the phoenix, in which it is now completely clear that the object of praise is ‘this Ladie’. Who the lady in question is, is left open – perhaps Salusbury’s wife or the Queen.107 Chester claims authorship of the anthology as an anthology while being less clear about precise authorship of the content. According to the 1601 title-page, much of the text, apart from the ‘legend of the famous King Arthur’ and the added ‘new compositions, of seuerall modern Writers’, purports to be a translation by Chester: a ‘first’ translation, of a poem by the ‘venerable Italian’ Torquato Cæliano, who is almost certainly fictitious.108 Chester thus draws authority from a ‘venerable’ poet and adds novelty with a first translation. The ‘true legend of famous King Arthur’ is the ‘first Essay of a new Brytish Poet’ (un-named but presumably Chester) with authentic material ‘collected out of diuerse Authenticall Records’. Attribution is haphazard. On the title-page Chester denies authorship of the poems in the anthology by presenting himself as translator, yet he appears regularly in ‘Finis R.C.’ marginal notes suggesting his authorship of the bulk of the material. Chester’s two prefatory poems: ‘The Authors request to the Phoenix’ which asks the Phoenix to ‘Accept my home-writ praises of thy loue’(A4r) and ‘To the kind Reader’ also suggest his authorship of much of the verses. With conventional modesty (though, in his case, completely appropriate), he writes ‘My vntun’d stringed verse do thou excuse’ (A4v). Elsewhere Chester claims ‘authorship’ of the anthology: his signed dedication to Sir John Salusbury describes the book is ‘his owne child’ and his ‘infant wit’ (A3r/v). The ‘Poeticall Essaies’ are more clearly attributed. The secondary title-page states that these are ‘Done by the best and chiefest of our modern writers, with their names subscribed to their particular workes’. Attributions are slightly haphazard.
107 Lines in some of these poems, but not Shakespeare’s, are marked with marginal commonplace commas (see Appendix 5). 108See Walter Oakeshott, ‘Love’s Martyr’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 39 (1975-76), 29-49. See also Grosart, lxviii-lxx. Grosart thought Chester had somehow mixed Tasso’s first name (Torquato) with the surname of an obscure Italian poet Livio Cæliano who had had some verses published in Rime de Diversi Celebri Poeti (Bergamo, 1538). No trace of these poems has been discovered. 66
Some poems are attributed individually and some in groups. For example, of the two poems on signature Z3r, ‘The First’ is not attributed and ‘The burning’ is attributed ‘Ignoto’, so presumably both are by the same anonymous poet. The opening poems ‘Invocatio’ and ‘To the worthily honor’d Knight Sir Iohn Salisburie’ are attributed to ‘Vatum Chorus’ suggesting that these are collaborative verses by all the ‘moderne writers’. Shakespeare’s contribution is attributed to ‘William Shake-speare’. The four poems following Shakespeare’s are not attributed until after the last one when the name ‘Iohn Marston’ is printed. Why and how these poems came to be part of Loves Martyr is another mystery. We do not know if the contributors were canvassed by Chester or Blount the printer. The ‘Poeticall Essaies’ may have been added to give credibility and novelty to Chester’s efforts. One theory is that Jonson had some connection with the Salusbury household, since a manuscript in his hand was once in the family’s library, and he was asked by Chester to commission verses from the other poets.109 Critics are tempted to regard Shakespeare in 1601 as the ‘best and chiefest’ of the ‘moderne writers’ and the senior participant in the Poeticall Essaies. William J. Kennedy suggests Shakespeare was the senior poet: Shakespeare’s motivation may well have been commercial and even self- promotional. Just as Shakespeare might have enjoyed sharing the company of young rising poets at the turn of the new century, so might they have hoped to gain from sharing his company.
Kennedy sees Chapman’s contribution echoing Shakespeare’s topoi and Marston’s building to a ‘deferential conclusion that acknowledges Shakespeare’s priority in status and ability’.110 Bednarz regards Shakespeare as a pro-active contributor. He also sees the venture in terms of a competition with Shakespeare as the winner: One might conceive of their coactive engagement with each other in composing the ‘Poeticall Essaies’ as a kind of test (assay) or contest to determine who could most eloquently respond – by ‘allegorically shadowing the truth of love’ – to Chester’s fascinating myth.
[…] the first named poet to step forward is ‘W. Shakespeare’, (sic) whose contribution, the sole masterpiece in the collection, with its odd balance of ritualized austerity and playful wit, together with its poignant
109 See Burrow, 88. 110 William J. Kennedy, ‘Shakespeare and the Development of English Poetry’ in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s Poetry, 14-32, 22. 67
ontological paradoxes – that two are one and one is none – is the first great published ‘metaphysical’ poem.111
Shakespeare’s contribution, however, is less than Jonson’s and Marston’s four poems each and the Vatum Chorus’ and Ignoto’s two poems. Without the benefit of hindsight, the anthology does not present a prominent or senior Shakespeare, but one among equals. All four named writers had published both plays and poems in 1601 and Chapman, the oldest at 42, was arguably as senior as Shakespeare, both in terms of age and publication. He had several volumes of poetry in print, Shadow of Night (1594), Ovid’s Banquet (1595), Hero and Leander (1598) and a translation of seven books of Homer’s Iliad (1598); and, as a dramatist, unattached to an acting company, he had had four of his plays printed. Shakespeare aged 37 had had less poetry printed, though his Venus and Adonis and Lucrece had gone through four and three impressions respectively, but more of his plays had found their way into print. Marston and Jonson were both younger men at 25 and 29, but both had had several plays printed and Marston two volumes of satiric verses. As the contributor of one poem to the ‘Poeticall Essaies’ Shakespeare’s presence in Loves Martyr is minimal. As one of the ‘Vatum Chorus’ contributing one short poem Shakespeare’s fame or status as a poet at the time was not highlighted or enhanced. Chester’s layout does not set apart ‘The Phoenix and Turtle’. The attribution at the end of the poem does not highlight Shakespeare’s presence in the book, he is not mentioned on the title-pages and if, as Lukas Erne claims, Shakespeare’s name sold books at that time, his name was certainly not used to sell this anthology. Its publishing history shows that Loves Martyr was not commercially successful, so its impact should not be overestimated. The Shakespeare its anthologist created differs from the one created contemporaneously in Passionate Pilgrim, Belvedere, Englands Parnassus and Englands Helicon: the Shakespeare of Loves Martyr is not a source of commonplaces or a poet of amorous or pastoral lyrics but a serious, complex, philosophical, classically inflected, ‘metaphysical’ poet, one of a group of ‘moderne poets’ but not pre-eminent.
111 Bednarz 2007a, 117. 68
IV
As previously outlined a number of entire texts attributed to Shakespeare were printed around the end of the sixteenth century: four editions of the narrative poems and four editions of three plays. At the same time attributed extracts from his texts were printed in five printed anthologies making these a significant means for readers to experience Shakespeare. These anthologies created alternative Shakespeares to the narrative poet and playwright. In Belvedere lack of attribution almost hides a Shakespeare who is named as one in a long list of ‘moderne poets’ valued as providers of commonplaces. Englands Parnassus attributes extracts and creates a Shakespeare who is a provider of snippets of widely-applicable wisdom and philosophy in the form of commonplaces. The anthologist also creates a Shakespeare who is a lyric poet by extracting ‘flowers’ from Shakespeare’s plays and poems and by selecting some longer passages and presenting them as ‘poems’ and by attributing all of these extracts. Shakespeare in Belvedere and Englands Parnassus is not pre-eminent but one among many, his texts being used relatively infrequently compared to other poets. Four of the anthologies, The Passionate Pilgrim, Englands Parnassus, Englands Helicon and Loves Martyr also create a Shakespeare who is a lyric poet. In Pilgrim, through its title-page, he stands alone as a poet of amorous lyric verse. In Englands Helicon Shakespeare is a pastoral lyric poet but, represented with only one poem, he is a minor poet, outnumbered by other more frequently cited pastoral poets. Loves Martyr almost hides Shakespeare in the textual mass that makes up the anthology as a whole although he is easier to find in the Poetical Essaies. If that mini-anthology is not read retrospectively ‘searching for Shakespeare’ and read as it would have been in 1601, Shakespeare is presented as one of a small group of equals collaborating on a project. Here he is not a poet of light amorous verse but a philosophical, metaphysical poet. In none of these anthologies does he emerge as a man of the theatre. These turn of the century anthologies create alternative Shakespeares: the ‘philosopher’, a provider of universally applicable wisdom and moral guidance, aphorisms and proverbs and Shakespeare the lyric poet. I will show in subsequent chapters that anthologists were to repeatedly re-invent these two Shakespeares in later centuries, and continue to do so.
69
2. Pieces of Plays, Extractions and Poems: Shakespeare in Anthologies 1616 - 1700
I
Shakespeare’s plays went out of fashion following his death and/or publication of the First Folio. At least that is a persistent scenario, re-stated in the mid-twentieth century by G.E. Bentley.1 It is claimed that Jonson and younger playwrights like Fletcher were more esteemed and popular in the period between Shakespeare’s death and 1642, and again when the theatres re-opened in 1660. In the post-Restoration theatre, Shakespeare’s plays, if performed, were more likely to be encountered in rewritten adaptations.2 Gary Taylor comments on the general ‘failure to remember much of Shakespeare’ in 1660, can find no reference to any performance of a Shakespeare play during the closure of the theatres and argues that the plays survived only in the form of drolls.3 Paulina Kewes re-examines Bentley’s view and argues that Shakespeare’s reputation in the second half of the seventeenth century remains in doubt, concluding that, ‘Shakespeare is far from a towering and dominant figure prior to the appearance of Rowe’s edition in 1709, and not much more so for a good many years after that’.4 Such views ignore Shakespeare’s poems and the plays as reading texts although, Kewes accepts, the ‘literary canon is only tangentially influenced by popularity in the theatre’.5 Seventeenth-century anthologies published after 1616 have not been adequately considered in relation to Shakespeare in the seventeenth century.6 In this chapter I examine the Shakespeare(s) created by the relatively few seventeenth-century print anthologies that include extracts from his texts. I suggest that the Shakespeares created by the anthologies printed in his lifetime, Shakespeare the poet and Shakespeare the source of ‘wisdom’ or commonplaces, were perpetuated in later seventeenth-century anthologies.
1 G.E. Bentley, Shakespeare and Jonson: their reputations in the seventeenth century compared (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1945). 2 See Dobson, 17-61. 3 Taylor Re-inventing, 10/11. 4 Paulina Kewes, ‘Between the “Triumvirate of Wit” and the Bard: The English Dramatic Canon 1660-1720’ in Texts and Cultural Change in Early Modern England, eds., Cedric Brown and Arthur Marotti (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997), 200-24, 220. See also David Frost, ‘Shakespeare in the Seventeenth Century’, SQ, 16 (1965), 81-9. 5 Kewes, 220. 6 Kate Rumbold has recently briefly considered Cotgrave’s anthology and Shakespeare songs in popular printed mid-century miscellanies. (Rumbold 2011, 91). 70
First I consider printed Shakespeare’s texts available to readers between 1616 and 1700. In ‘The Popularity of Shakespeare in Print’, Lukas Erne argues that Shakespeare’s ambition to be a literary dramatist was fulfilled in his lifetime and that his popularity as a printed dramatist in his own time anticipated his ‘authorial pre- eminence’ in later centuries. Erne presents statistics on the number of playbooks printed or reprinted between 1584 and 1660 to demonstrate that Shakespeare’s playbooks (individual plays and collected editions) greatly outnumbered those of other dramatists in the periods 1584 to 1642 and 1584 to 1660.7 Erne does not give separate statistics for playbooks printed between 1616 and 1642 and between 1642 to 1660, so Shakespeare’s print dominance in his own lifetime (covered by both Erne’s chosen timespans) skews the statistics. The Shakespeare texts printed after 1616 suggest that there was a steady market for reading Shakespeare after that date, although there were nothing like the number of new editions that had been available during the quarter century or so of his writing career. Between 1616 and 1700 there were four editions of Shakespeare’s collected plays in the prestigious and expensive folio format and thirty-five individual play quartos were published, as well as the nine so-called Pavier quartos, but most of these quartos (twenty-one of the thirty-five) appeared before 1642. After 1642 mainly tragedies were printed in quarto and after 1660 the plays printed appear to reflect the success of (the un-adapted) Othello, Hamlet and Julius Caesar on the London stage (see Appendix 6).8 If reprints indicate popularity, then Shakespeare’s narrative poems surpassed the plays in popularity after 1616, especially Venus and Adonis which was reprinted seven times after that date. Printed texts are only part of the picture. The Index of English Literary Manuscripts shows that individual seventeenth-century readers continued to extract from a variety of Shakespeare’s texts and include them in manuscript commonplace books, verse and song collections. Unlike printed anthologies, manuscript collections were personal to the compiler, did not reach a large readership and so had a minimal impact on the public perception of Shakespeare. The Index indicates that the Shakespeare texts most frequently included in manuscript collections were sonnets and songs from the plays, particularly songs from The Tempest. The inclusion of
7 Erne 2009. 8 Dobson 1992, 25-6. 71
Shakespeare’s sonnets in manuscripts dating from the 1630s suggests that these poems were being read, circulated and enjoyed at that time.9 Shakespeare’s songs are also evident in the many printed miscellanies published in the mid-seventeenth century. Miscellanies, a sub-species of anthology, typically combined numerous short verses by a large number of authors. Adam Smyth describes their content: Particularly popular verse forms were the epigram, the comic epitaph, the ballad, the epistle, the lyric, the mock and the dialogue. The miscellany collections represent a bundling together of writing from diverse sources – commonplace books, printed verse collections, play texts, dramatic or musical performances, song books, ballads, educational tracts and other printed miscellanies10.
Smyth notes that many miscellanies mixed verses with a variety of other materials such as model letters, dictionaries, riddles and jokes and short informative articles. The most common subject for these mid-century miscellanies was love and the prevailing tone was ‘somewhere between the dutifully educative and playfully reckless’.11 Shakespeare is low in the list of writers whose texts were used: his texts appeared only ten times in six of the forty or so miscellanies examined by Smyth.12 Just four Shakespeare songs were used: ‘Take, O take those lips away’ from Measure for Measure occurs three times, ‘Jog on, jog on the foot-path way’ from The Winter’s Tale was used twice, ‘Under the greenwood tree’ from As You Like It is printed twice and ‘Where the bee sucks, there suck I’ from The Tempest appeared three times. These were not attributed and are titled ‘song’ or ‘catch’ or, in one instance, the song from Measure for Measure is titled ‘To his mistresse’. This minimal usage and the lack of attribution mean that none of the miscellanies created a Shakespeare and he remained hidden amongst their multifarious content; however, these miscellanies and the surviving manuscript anthologies, several of which were song books, suggest that Shakespeare’s lyrics were valued and enjoyed. The years after his death saw a decline in Shakespeare on the public stage, a gradual decline in the number of his texts being printed and, likewise, his presence in printed anthologies also diminished. Numerous anthologies were printed between
9 See Peter Beal, Index of English Literary Manuscripts, Vol. II, 1625-1700 (London: Mansell, 1987- 1993). 10 Adam Smyth, Profit and Delight (Detroit:Wayne State University Press, 2004), 2. 11 Ibid, 3. 12 Ibid, 6-7. 72
1616 and 1700, but only three contain a significant number of extracts from Shakespeare texts: The Wits or Sport upon Sport (1662-1673), John Cotgrave’s The English Treasury of Wit and Language (1655) and John Benson’s Poems: written by Wil. Shake-speare, Gent. (1640). Each anthologist created a different mid- seventeenth-century Shakespeare.
II
‘Humours and pieces of Plays’13: The Wits, or, Sport upon Sport, 1662-1673
The Wits is best known for its frontispiece, often thought to illustrate the Red Bull Theatre. It is not generally recognised that The Wits is the earliest printed anthology to collect extracts from Shakespeare’s plays and present them as dramatic extracts rather than as poems or commonplaces. John Elson’s comment in 1932 that the ‘bibliography bearing on this book is very limited’ and that ‘few references to The Wits go beyond a mere mention of the book’ remains true today.14 The Wits is an anthology of seventeenth-century drolls: short sketches or interludes, some original dramatic sketches, some perhaps based on earlier entertainments, and some created by refashioning extracts from old stage plays into independent short plays. Usually comic in nature, drolls may have been performed by professional actors, amateurs and, possibly, puppeteers.15 They flourished during the closure of the theatres and after the Restoration. Their continuing popularity encouraged Henry Marsh and Francis Kirkham to publish their stock of drolls, beginning in 1661 with Bottom the weaver - extracts from A Midsummer Night’s Dream - followed by The Wits or, Sport upon Sport in 1662, 1672 and 1673. The number of editions suggests that these were popular anthologies. The complex publishing history of The Wits is outlined in Appendix 7. I refer to the editions of
13 The Wits… (1673), sig. A2r. 14 John James Elson, ed., The Wits or, Sport upon Sport (London: OUP, 1932), viii. 15Ibid., 18-26. 73
Fig. 3. Frontispiece and title-page The Wits, or Sport upon Sport, 1662.
74
1662 and 1672 as ‘Part I’ and the edition of 1673 as ‘Part II’. See Appendix 7 for the content and source of the drolls in TheWits. Part I comprises twenty-seven drolls: most are contrived from scenes extracted from old plays but it includes five drolls with no known source previously printed in 1655/6 as Acteon and Diana. There are two Shakespearean drolls but the majority are lifted from the Fletcher canon. Other dramatists used are Shirley, John Cooke, Jonson and the Duke of Newcastle. The volume opens with The Bouncing Knight, or, the Robers Rob’d taken from 1 Henry IV and the ninth droll is The Grave-Makers taken from Hamlet. A ‘Catalogue’ at the front of the book lists the drolls giving details of the parent plays but not their authors. The information is not always accurate: The Bouncing Knight’s parent play is mistakenly given as ‘Edw. IV’.16 Unlike Part I, most of Part II’s ten drolls are not from stage plays and several are not comic. The two from stage plays are The Cheater Cheated from Marston’s The Dutch Courtesan and The merry conceited humours of Bottom the weaver taken from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Wits declared a range of aims: to provide reading material and acting scripts, to celebrate the plays and playwrights of the recent past and to preserve the drolls performed during the closure of the theatres. The address to the reader in Bottom the weaver (1661) indicates that Kirkham and Marsh were testing the market by publishing a script for amateur acting. It hath been the desire of several (who know we have many pieces of this nature in our hands) that we should publish them, and we considering the general mirth that is likely, very suddainly to happen about the Kings Coronation; and supposing that things of this Nature, will be acceptable, have therefore begun with this which we know may be easily acted, and may be now as fit for a private recreation as formerly it hath been for a publike. If you please to encourage us with Your acceptance of this, you will enduce us to bring forth our store, and we will assure you that we are plentifully furnished with things of this Nature …
Their publication was presumably successful as they published more of their store of drolls the following year. The address to the reader in The Wits Part I (1662), reprinted in the 1672 edition, reveals wider aims. It discloses commercial motives: ‘my plot with my Humours is clearly for sale; for I intend to raise no other reputation to myself then that of Ready Money’ (sig. A3r). It focusses on the origins of the material and
16 Ibid., 369- 392 for details of source plays. 75 celebrates the theatrical past, describing the book as ‘a miscellany of all Humours which our fam’d Comedies have exquisitely and aptly represented in the becoming dress of the Stage’ and which have ‘Emerited universal applause’. It also urges readers to ‘remember the Rump Drolls’,17 acknowledging that (unfixed) performances have been transfigured into (fixed) reading texts: All I am obliged to say therefore, is in justification of the Collection of them into this entire consistencie, the making of a fluid a solid Body, which even the Experiment it self, among the Ingenious, will fairly defend. (sig.A3r/v).
The address claims that the extracts are readily separable from their source plays, implying that drolls are bits of plays that are improved by isolation from the whole. He that knows a Play, knows that humours have no such fixedness and indissoluble connexion to the Design, but that without injury or forcible revulsion they may be removed to an advantage; which is so demonstrable, that I am sure nothing but a morose propriety will offer to deny it. (sig.A3v).
‘Humours’ also suggests the extracts exhibit both character and/or comic elements. The collection is a convenience: ‘(saving the difficulty of purveying and hacking up and down) should best invite and entertain you’ (sig.A3v). The humorous extracts are also recommended as a cure for melancholy and amateur performance of the drolls to this end is envisaged: Next, he who would make up a Treatment to his Friends by any such diversion, cannot study a more compendious method, without the help of Fiddlers and mercenary Mimicks, and the long labour of a cue: one Scene, which may almost be acted Extempore, will be abundantly satisfactory, being chosen fit and suitable to the Company, as none can come amiss, ‘Twill make Physick work, ‘twill cease the pains of more inveterate diseases, ‘twill allay the heat and distemper of Wine, and generally it is the panacea, the universal cure, mighty Mirths Elixir. (sig. A3v/A4r).
The Wits Part II (1673) provides additional background information about its content. The title-page claims that the drolls had been performed at Bartholomew Fair in London and other fairs around the country, in halls and taverns, on ‘several mountebanks stages’ at Charing Cross and Lincoln’s Inn Fields by ‘strolling players, fools and fidlers and the mountebanks zanies’. This edition carries a preface by Kirkman in which he suggests that as well as pleasing readers it contains useful performance scripts for professional players and for mountebanks wishing to attract
17 ‘Rump Drolls’ refers to drolls performed during the Commonweath and the Rump Parliament (1648-1653). 76 customers. Its usefulness for those at sea is also emphasised – whether for reading or for amateur acting is unclear. He again recommends the laughter it provides as complementary medicine.18 On the 1673 title-page Kirkman claims that the contents were ‘written I know not when, by several Persons, I know not who’, but his Preface acknowledges some of the authors and his remarks apparently cover both Parts I and II of The Wits. Kirkham also indicates that the drolls were conceived and performed during the closure of the theatres in defiance of the law: The most part of these pieces were written by such Penmen as were known to be the Ablest Artists that ever this Nation produced, by name, Shake-spear, Fletcher, Jonson, Shirley, and others; and these Collections are the very Soul of their writings, if the witty part thereof may be so termed; And the other small pieces composed by several other Authors are such as have been of great fame in this Last Age where the publique theatres were shut up, and the Actors forbidden to present us with any of their Tragedies, because we had enough of that in earnest; and the Comedies, because the Vices of the Age were too lively and smartly represented; then all that we could divert our selves with were these humours and pieces of plays, which passing under the Name of a merry conceited fellow, called Bottom/ the Weaver, Simpleton the Smith, John Swabber, or some such Title, were only allowed us, and that by stealth too, and under the pretence of Rope-Dancing, or the like; and these being all that was permitted us, great was the confluence of the Auditors; and these small things were as profitable, and as great get-pennies as any of our late famed Plays.(sig.A2r/v)
Later Kirkman credits ‘the incomparable Robert Cox’ as the principal ‘contriver and author’ of the drolls (sig. A2v); it is unclear whether this includes those adapted from stage plays. A consideration of the anthologist’s work reveals the Shakespeare created in The Wits. I will assume that Kirkham and/or Marsh, for whom the various editions were printed, were also the anthologist(s).19 Little is known about them and Marsh died in 1665. Kirkman, a bookseller with a large catalogue of plays, was an intrusive anthologist. A prefatory marketing plea was added to Part I in 1672, exhorting readers to come to his shop to purchase the drolls’ parent plays. Kirkman provided a lengthy preface to Part II and added a personal comment on the title-page, his name capitalised:
18 The Wits…,1673, sig.A4r/v. 19 See Elson, 5-11. 77
‘Written I know not when, by several Persons, I know not who, but now newly Collected by your Old Friend to please you, FRANCIS KIRKMAN.’
The frontispiece to Part II (octavo edition) comprises an engraving of Kirkman mimicking contemporary classically garbed authorial frontispiece portraits, above a coat of arms and the legend ‘F.K. Citizen of London/ Ætat 41 1673’; with enormous self-confidence, Kirkman positions himself as the ‘author’ of the anthology. The anthologist’s added paratexts are minimal but significant. The 1662 (and 1672) title-page stressed the anthology’s novelty and widespread appeal: ‘fitted for the pleasure and content of all persons […] The like never before Published’. The 1662 (and 1672) frontispiece is a puzzle. Characters from several of the drolls are depicted on the stage of an indoor theatre: the French Dancing Master, Simpleton, Bubble, Falstaff and the Hostess, but a character not found in the drolls, ‘Changeling’, is also shown. I agree with Elson that this frontispiece is ‘purely the work of the artist’s imagination, designed to suggest the possibilities of droll performances and promote the sale of the book, rather than portray the actual setting in which some furtive Commonwealth shows were given’.20 However, it reflects the content’s performance origins, the possibility of future performance and features two Shakespearean characters. As noted, the table of contents in the 1662 and 1672 editions lists and names the drolls, and identifies many of the parent plays. The play/performance is important, not the playwright; Part I makes no reference to the authors whether of the parent plays or the drolls. The anthologist adds features that assist readers and performers equally: pagination, running titles indicating the droll number and title and rows of printer’s flowers separating drolls. The drolls have titles, but whether these were inherited by the anthologist or invented by them is unknown. The anthologist provides an ‘argument’ for the drolls which are derived from stage plays, setting the scene and listing characters but this is deemed unnecessary for the five, apparently originally conceived drolls, previously published in 1656, the reason offered that they were very well known. The 1673 title-page recognised the transposition of performance into a fixed format, referring to ‘Select Pieces of DROLLERY, Digested into SCENES by way of DIALOGUE’. In Part II Kirkman was especially interested in the drolls’ performance history. The title-page describes the content as ‘Presented and Shewn
20 Elson, 426. 78 for the Merriment and Delight of Wise Men and the Ignorant; As they have been sundry times Acted in Publique and Private’ and recites earlier performances and performers. As mentioned, Kirkman’s preface also discussed performances during the closure of the theatres, particularly by Robert Cox, and recommended the content for both performance and reading. The drolls in Part II are mainly original playlets with only two derived from stage plays and one from a court masque. There is no table of contents, although the book is paginated and has running titles for each droll. Arguments are not provided for the standalone drolls although a cast list heads each. All the Shakespearean drolls in The Wits are short play texts with a list of parts, speech prefixes and stage directions. The Bouncing Knight, or, The Robers Rob’d. in Part I takes material from the Falstaff scenes in 1 Henry IV, focussing entirely on ‘the bouncing knight’ and the comic element and omitting lines when Falstaff is off stage or which refer to the historical plot.21 Speeches are elided and reassigned but essentially follow the source text. The argument briefly outlines the events of the Gadshill robbery in the first three scenes of Act 2. The Bouncing Knight works both as a reading text and as an acting text. The other Shakespearean droll in Part I, The Grave-Makers, uses Hamlet Act 5, scene 1, up to the entry of Ophelia’s cortège. The Argument explains that the grave-digger is making a grave for a lady that drowned herself and is questioned by Hamlet and his ‘friend’.22 The play text is followed closely, omitting only lines that would diminish the comic tone: Hamlet’s aside to Horatio ( ‘How absolute the knave is … comes so near the courtier he galls his kibe’), his reminiscence of Yorick, ( ‘He hath bore me on his back …those lips that I hath kissed I know not how oft’ lines175-179) and the final lines of the same speech ( ‘Not one now to mock your own grinning…Make her laugh at that’ lines 182 -184). The merry conceited humours of Bottom the weaver, previously published on its own in 1661, is the only Shakespearean droll in ‘Part II’. It is the penultimate item, placed with the only other droll derived from a stage play, The Cheater Cheated. Bottom the weaver combines extracts from the fairy and ‘rude mechanicals’ scenes in Dream cutting all reference to the lovers.23 It follows the
21 1H4 2.5, 3.3, 4.2, 5.1, 5.4. 22 Horatio is not named; his lines are prefixed ‘2 Gent’ or ‘Friend’. 23MND 1.2; 2.1.148-185;and 247-8; 2.2.1-32; 3.1, 1-70; 3.2.1-37; 4.1.1-83 and 198 to end;4.2; 5.1.1-355. 79 source text closely, adding an introductory context-setting speech and a short passage linking the lines from scenes 1 and 2 of Act 2. Although The Wits’ anthologists present drolls for readers, the paratexts indicate that the potential for acting and a desire to celebrate performances of the drolls in the recent past was also in mind. Since the drolls are not attributed and Shakespeare is only identified as a contributing writer in the 1673 preface, making a case for The Wits as an anthology that created a ‘Shakespeare’ is problematic. The titles concentrate on the one comic character that is the main attraction: Falstaff; the Grave-digger and Bottom. This suggests that these comic characters were widely known before the 1660s and had already developed an independent life outside the plays much earlier than the eighteenth century, as Michael Dobson suggests.24 Falstaff and the Hostess also feature prominently on Part I’s frontispiece which was partly designed to advertise the book’s content. Whether readers and audiences recognised the characters or material as Shakespeare’s or whether they simply recognised familiar characters we cannot know. Attribution to individual writers was unimportant to Marsh and Kirkman, whereas the links with the pre-Commonwealth theatre and plays merited special mention in Part I’s ‘Catalogue’ and Part II’s preface. Other scenes in Shakespeare’s plays offered potential material for drolls, but we do not know if any were used in this way. Kirkman’s assiduous collection of early modern play-texts and drolls would suggest that if there were other Shakespearean drolls, he is likely to have collected and published them. Given the circumstances and locations of droll performances during the Commonwealth and subsequently, the scenes and characters selected from Shakespeare are not surprising.25 Indeed, A Midsummer Night’s Dream remains a perennial favourite for outdoor and amateur performance. The three Shakespearean drolls may reflect the fact that Hamlet and 1 Henry IV were among the few Shakespeare plays printed in quarto more than once in the seventeenth century, but this does not account for the alleged popularity, according to the 1661 title page, of Bottom the weaver. The Shakespearean drolls focus on Shakespeare’s comic figures and his comedy of character and situation. Insofar as he is mentioned, Shakespeare is regarded as a dramatist of ‘the Last Age’, one of ‘the Ablest Artists’ produced by the nation but one among many. In both parts of The Wits he is afforded equal status
24 Dobson, 214. 25 See Elson, 18-26 for an outline history of droll performance. 80 with the all the creators of the drolls, whether they were derived from stage plays or other texts or developed, perhaps through improvisation, by performers like Cox. Of the twenty-four drolls taken from stage plays the majority are from plays either by Fletcher or in which he had a hand. This might reflect Fletcher’s ascendancy and a waning in Shakespeare’s popularity in the theatres in the years leading to and immediately after the Commonwealth. On the other hand it demonstrates that some of Shakespeare’s comic characters, continued to be popular in performance, if only in the form of drolls. Kirkman says in his 1673 Preface that the drolls represent ‘the very Soul’ of Shakespeare’s and the other dramatists’ writings. If Shakespeare’s name can be attached to the drolls derived from his plays, in the mid-seventeenth century The Wits’ anthologist created and remembered a ‘Shakespeare’ who was an inventor of comic characters and plots. Simultaneously, other seventeenth-century anthologists created alternative Shakespeares.
III
The English Treasury of Wit and Language, 1655
‘Extractions therefore are the best conservers of knowledge, if not the readiest way to it’.26
John Cotgrave’s The English Treasury of Wit and Language, collected out of the most, and the best of our English drammatick poems: methodically digested into commonplaces for general use comprises extracts from English plays arranged under headings in commonplace book format. Published in 1655 by Humphrey Moseley it has attracted little attention from scholars, probably because the anthologist identified neither the writers nor the sources of the extracts. G.E. Bentley checked the accuracy of 323 of the manuscript attributions made in a British Museum copy of the anthology in which unknown annotators marked the source of the vast majority of the extracts. According to Bentley there are 1686 extracts. Most are short and are taken from public theatre plays written between the 1590s and the 1640s. Bentley comments that the dramatists used are ‘strikingly contemporary’ and the majority active close to the date of compilation. He lists the writers and source plays for the
26 John Cotgrave, The English Treasury of Wit and Language (London, 1655), sig.A5r. 81 extracts which had been identified. Those with the most extracts, on Bentley’s reckoning, are Shakespeare (154), Beaumont and Fletcher (112) Jonson (111), Chapman (111), Fulke Greville (110), Webster (104), Shirley (85) and Middleton (78).27 Martin Wiggins has reconsidered the content of The English Treasury and has now accounted for all but 17 of the entries – Bentley had been unable to account for 157. To date a total of 159 extracts from Shakespeare’s plays have been identified (excluding 8 from the apocryphal The Puritan) and these are listed in Appendix 8.28 These statistics might suggest that Shakespeare was the most popular dramatist at the time or Cotgrave’s favourite, but since Fulke Greville is represented with over a hundred extracts taken from just two plays, Alaham and Mustapha, this is too simplistic. Bentley and others have suggested that the numbers of extracts may simply reflect contemporary title-page attributions and the availability of a large number of certain writers’ texts in folio editions; although in the case of Shakespeare and Jonson, the compiler went beyond the folios for extracts.29 Gary Taylor, arguing for Middleton’s pre-eminence in the mid-seventeenth century, has claimed that the anthology contains more extracts from Middleton than Shakespeare, but John Jowett has qualified this suggestion.30 An argument for any writer’s pre-eminence is, anyway, weakened by the anthology’s non-attribution of the extracts.
27 G.E.Bentley, ‘John Cotgrave’s English Treasury of Wit and Language and the Elizabethan Drama’, SP,40 (1943), 186-203, 199/200. 28 Rumbold makes it 1682 extracts and accepts Bentley’s figure of 154 Shakespeare extracts (Rumbold 2011, 90). I have not counted the entries and until all are accurately identified totals remain uncertain. Martin Wiggins points out that, when extracts run over the page, it is not always possible to tell when a new entry starts due to the book’s design and that not all Bentley’s ascriptions are correct. (Private correspondence with Martin Wiggins, June 2012. I am grateful to him for sharing his findings). 29 Martin Wiggins notes that Cotgrave used both Folio and Quarto texts of Othello and Hamlet. See also Rumbold 2011, 91. 30 Taylor made the claim on 21 November 2007 in a presentation at Shakespeare’s Globe, London, launching Thomas Middleton: The Collected Works, edited by himself and John Lavagnino (Oxford: OUP, 2007). An edited version of Taylor’s talk ‘Our Other Shakespeare’ is printed in Around the Globe, 38 (Spring 2008), 30-31. He writes: The only 17th century printed anthology of memorable passages from English plays quoted Shakespeare and Middleton more than anyone else – and quoted the Middleton canon slightly more than the Shakespeare canon, despite the fact that a smaller proportion of Middleton’s dramatic work was in print at the time. Bentley concluded that there were 78 extracts from Middleton. Changes in attribution have been made since then and it is argued that several ‘Shakespeare’ plays (Timon, Measure for Measure and Macbeth) were co-written with Middleton. John Jowett considers The English Treasury in a companion volume to the Oxford Middleton edition. He subtracts ‘Middleton’ plays from Shakespeare’s tally and adds to the Middleton tally extracts from plays not previously attributed to Middleton or otherwise ignored to conclude that both Middleton and Shakespeare have 147 extracts. John Jowett, ‘“For Many of Your Companies”: Middleton’s Early Readers’ in Taylor and Lavagnino eds., Thomas Middleton and Early Modern Textual Culture (Oxford: OUP, 2007), 286-327, 301-2. 82
Cotgrave’s title indicates that he went to ‘English Drammatick Poems’ to extract both ‘Wit’ and ‘Language’, that is, wisdom or ‘rich and useful Observations’ expressed in the best, most beautiful way. After Cotgrave’s address to the reader and ‘An Alphabeticall Table of all the Common Places contained in this Book’, the extracts are presented under alphabetically ordered headings beginning with ‘Of Accident’ and proceeding to ‘Of Youth’. Extracts are separated by horizontal lines across the page. Prose passages are rendered as pentameter blank verse, words are altered to impersonalise the extracts, speeches are run together and where an extract consists of a passage of dialogue speech prefixes are replaced with numerals. Occasionally Cotgrave added words to bridge gaps or serve as an introduction to an extract. As Jowett puts it ‘The extracts are contrived to stand as specimens of poetry rather than dramatic dialogue – but anonymous poetry’.31 In fact these manipulations universalise and turn dramatic speech into aphorisms or commonplaces more often than into specimens of poetry. Their tone is overwhelmingly didactic. Cotgrave’s preface argues for his anthology and the drama along utilitarian lines. He regards himself as the ‘Conduit–pipe to convey the purest water from the fountain’ of the dramatists. His book is a timesaver for readers at a time when printing has vastly increased the quantity of reading material: Or if Solomon could say, that the reading of many Bookes is weariness to the flesh when there were none but Manuscripts in the world: How much is that wearinesse increased since the Art of printing has so infinitely multiplied large and vast volumes in every place, that the longest life of a man is not sufficient to explore so much as the substance of them. (sig.A5r)
The drama provides ‘many rich and useful Observations’ not least because the dramatists ‘were the most fluent and redundan: Wits that this age (or I think any other) ever knew’ and wrote in commonplace book tradition: many of them so able Schollers, and Linguists, as they have culled the choicest Flowers out of the greater number of Greeke, Latin, Italian, Spanish and French Authors (Poets especially) to embellish and enrich the English Scene withal, besides, almost a prodigious accrewment of their own luxuriant fancies. (sig.A6r)
He acknowledges that he is presenting extracts out of context, but this is more than compensated for by their utility:
31 Jowett, 301, Note 17. 83
And if they seem to lose ought of their native vigour or beauty in the transplanting, I would hope it is reasonably recompensed in the more usefulnessse of the method they are now in. (sig. A5v)
Little is known about Cotgrave. Between 1633 and 1648 he is believed to have edited a French language news-sheet Le Mercure Anglois which was friendly to Parliament.32 Cotgrave is also thought to be the ‘I.C.’ responsible for another compilation, Wit’s Interpreter, the English Parnassus, also published in 1655 by Nathaniel Brooke. This is a collection of fifty-one lovers’ dialogues, subject to varying degrees of adaptation, taken from contemporary printed plays and linked by a common subject matter: courtship. Again the extracts are not attributed. John Astington suggests that, as well as for reading, these extracts may have been used for domestic performance. It was a popular title, with a second revised edition in 1662 and a third in 1671. The 1655 edition takes from thirty plays by nineteen dramatists, chiefly Shirley, Fletcher, Massinger, Ford and Brome. Older plays are occasionally used (Middleton’s The Phoenix and Chapman’s Sir Giles) but there is nothing from Shakespeare, suggesting he did not immediately come to the compiler’s mind for an anthology of this kind.33 Cotgrave’s Treasury extracts from twenty-nine Shakespeare plays, non- dramatic poetry being outside his anthology’s ambit. The plays not used are the Shrew, 1, 2 and 3 Henry VI, Titus, Richard III, King John, The Merry Wives and the Dream. The relatively small number of passages taken from the early and more lyrical plays and the large number taken from later plays like Timon and Coriolanus is testament to the didactic and utilitarian aims of the compiler. Most extracts are from Hamlet and these are all short and generally aphoristic assertions, an exception being Hamlet’s words to the ghost (‘Remember thee?/ I, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat/In this distracted globe….).34 The Shakespeare passages are mainly short, at less than eight lines and mostly around four lines. Extracts are generally presented as commonplaces rather than ‘poems’; the sentiment more important than its expression, although the language is often strikingly beautiful.
32 W.H. Kelliher, ‘Cotgrave’, John’, DNB online
However, some of the Shakespearean passages exceed eight lines, where the anthologist completes the narrative of the section of the speech or dialogue selected. Occasionally the anthologist responds to the unity of a speech and selects a much longer passage, a ‘set piece’ (minus the cue lines linking it to the progress of the drama or remainder of the speech). Examples are the Duke’s speech from Measure for Measure (‘Be absolute for death’), Graziano’s ‘Let me play the fool’ and Portia’s ‘The quality of mercy’ from the Merchant.35 These extracts look like ‘poems’. One of the British Library’s copies of The English Treasury has been bound with interleaved blank pages and on some of these an early reader has added his own observations and commonplaces demonstrating how such printed commonplace books were used.36 Another copy, lacking the final pages (pages 309-311), contains numerous marginal annotations in several hands which identify the source of the majority of the extracts.37 It is thought that the handwriting predates William Oldys’ purchase of this book in 1730. There are also copious pencil ‘X’s and ‘O’s marked against many extracts. One of the Bodleian Library’s two copies of The English Treasury also has manuscript annotations attributing extracts but these are believed to have been made in the early part of eighteenth century by the then owner of the book, again William Oldys. 38 This need to identify the authors of the extracts is interesting and runs counter to Cotgrave’s title-page aim of providing ‘commonplaces for general use’. Like earlier printed commonplace book anthologists, Cotgrave was more interested in what was said and how it was expressed than the author, but some readers clearly liked to know who said it. Some of Cotgrave’s longer extracts move from being useful commonplaces to become, in effect, short lyric ‘poems’, which raises the question of whether the anthology was essentially a commonplace book to help writers or one for readers to enjoy or a blend of the two. Despite his utilitarian approach – perhaps prudent when presenting extracts from public theatre plays during the Commonwealth – Cotgrave does respond to Shakespeare’s poetry and, on occasion, edits accordingly. Had Cotgrave’s publisher Humphrey Moseley proceeded with the publication of John Evans’ Hesperides, or the Muses Garden, there would have been another commonplace anthology for mid-seventeenth century readers using even more of
35 Appendix 8, nos. 90, 94, 101. 36 Shelfmark G.16385 37 Shelfmark 1451.c.49, presumably the copy that G. E. Bentley used. 38 Douce CC 233. 85
Shakespeare’s texts. Details of this proposed book are outlined in Appendix 9. Hesperides was not published so we will never know what Shakespearean extracts might have been printed. What we do know about Hesperides suggests that Cotgrave’s use of Shakespeare’s plays was not an isolated occurrence in the mid- seventeenth century. In both anthologies Shakespeare is one writer among many and although quite heavily used he does not predominate over the other writers whose texts were also extracted. The title of Gunnar Sorelius’ essay ‘An Unknown Shakespearian Commonplace Book’, in which the history of Hesperides is considered, suggests that he looked at the Hesperides manuscripts from a Shakespeare-centric standpoint. There is a danger of over-emphasising the degree to which Shakespeare’s texts were used in seventeenth-century anthologies by ignoring the collections that do not use his texts. As noted, Shakespeare’s texts were rarely used in the majority of mid-seventeenth-century miscellanies and the authors of the extracts are not identified in these, or in The English Treasury and The Wits. It is unlikely then that many readers of The English Treasury would make the connection and know they were reading extracts from Shakespeare. The English Treasury has been compared to England’s Parnassus (1600) by Bentley and Rumbold, but its methodology brings it closer to Belvedere. Unlike those earlier anthologies, Treasury only takes from the drama. Englands Parnassus and Belvedere use Shakespeare’s narrative poems more than the plays, though when compiled, of course, only a limited number of Shakespeare’s plays had been written and printed. Like Belvedere, Treasury does not attribute and Cotgrave allows himself freedom to manipulate the texts. Limited to extracts from plays, Cotgrave’s project asserts more strongly than Belvedere and Englands Parnassus that the work of English public theatre ‘drammatick poets’, past and present, constituted ‘literature’. Cotgrave considers that the dramatists have been neglected and undervalued: ‘the Drammatick Poem seems to me (and many of my friends, better able to judge then I) to have been lately too much slighted’, but without attributions and with no dramatists named in the paratexts, Cotgrave celebrates English drama as a whole, not individual dramatists, and certainly does not give Shakespeare pre-eminence. Two years after Cotgrave’s Treasury another anthology, Joshua Poole’s The English Parnassus: or a Helpe to English Poesie also included unattributed extracts
86 from Shakespeare’s texts.39 Two editions were published posthumously in 1657 with further editions in 1677 and 1678.40 Poole is thought to have been a schoolmaster and his book was intended as a school text book to assist in the writing of poetry.41 To modern readers the anthology is an uninviting mix of material. After a dedication to Francis Atkinson (a schoolmaster in Hadley, near Barnet) and prefatory poem addressed to Atkinson’s ‘scholars’, the preface comprises a short treatise on English poetry. An alphabetical list of rhyming words (sig.B1r-D3r) is followed by an address to the reader (sig.D4r) and a list of the forty or so ‘Books principally made use of in the compiling of this work’ (sig.D5r). Names mentioned include Virgil, Ovid and Horace in translation, Jonson, Chaucer, Spenser’s Fairie Queen, Sidney’s Arcadia, Shakespeare and ‘comedies and Tragedies, many’. At signature D6r (p.43) begins an alphabetical list of nouns and, under each, adjectives deemed suitable for use with them. This runs to signature Q2v (p.228), then at signature Q3r (p.229) begins another section comprising an alphabetical list of topical headings (‘Abel to ‘Zodiac’) with appropriate extracts illustrating them commonplace book fashion. The extracted lines are a mix of short phrases with some longer passages, but most are very short. The extracts are not attributed, save that very occasionally translations from the classics are acknowledged by a marginal note. Finding Shakespeare in this book is challenging: it is not always clear when one extract ends and another starts, passages often run into one another, and extracts are not always exact quotations. For example, at signature P8v (p.232), the phrase ‘the beast with two backs’, probably taken from Othello, appears in a cluster of short phrases under the heading ‘Adultery, Adulterer’. A more sustained passage of Shakespearean extracts appears in the section headed ‘Night’ at signature Gg8v/ Hh1r (p.464/5). Here, mingled with extracts from other writers, are extracts from the Dream (‘When Phoebus doth behold| Her silver visage in the watery glass| decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass’, ‘[Dark]Night that from eyes their busy function take ... But paies the hearing double recompense’ and ‘Now the hungry lion roars…that lies in woe’), from Hamlet (‘The churchyards yawne, and hell itself breaths out| Contagion to this world’) and from Henry V (‘The creeping murmur and the poring dark,| Fills the wide vessel of the universe.’). Poole responds aesthetically to Shakespeare’s poetry
39 Poole, Joshua, The English Parnassus: Or, A Helpe to English Poesie (London, 1657). 40 See W.R. Meyer, ‘Poole Joshua (c.1615-c.1656)’, DNB online
IV Poems: written by Wil. Shake-speare, Gent, 1640.
What, lofty Shakespeare, art againe reviv’d […] Tis Benson’s love that thus to thee is showne, The labours his, the glory still thine owne.43
Attribution is not in question in John Benson’s Poems: written by Wil. Shake- speare. Gent. 44 It contains the majority of the sonnets printed in Shake-speares
42 Rumbold 2011, 90. 43 John Warren, ‘Of Mr William Shakespeare’ ( lines 1, and 3/4) in Poems: written by Wil Shake- speare, Gent., sig.*4v. 44 John Benson, ed., Poems; writtens by Wil. Shake-speare. Gent. (London: 1640). 88
Sonnets (1609), the poems in the 1612 edition of The Passionate Pilgrim, other poems by, or believed to be by, Shakespeare, commendatory verses about Shakespeare and a number of poems by other writers. As an octavo, Poems was more likely to be bound and survive than a quarto (the format in which the Sonnets were originally published), ensuring the anthology endured. 45 Until Malone most eighteenth-century Shakespeare editions that included the sonnets adopted Benson’s version. Benson rearranged the order of the 1609 sonnets, gave them titles, interspersed some other poems and often grouped them to create longer poems. His anthology is frequently referred to as an edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets rather than as a Shakespeare anthology and editors of the Sonnets appear united in their disapproval of Benson.46 In her Arden Shakespeare edition of the sonnets, Katharine Duncan-Jones considers Benson’s anthology ‘even more outrageously piratical and misleading’ than Jaggard’s Passionate Pilgrim and has ‘little doubt that Benson set out at once to ingratiate and to mislead his readers’.47 John Kerrigan concedes that, Benson might be defended as an early Shakespeare editor, producing a commemorative volume (with tributes filched from Milton, Jonson and others), and adapting the poems as best he could to the anti-sonneteering taste of his generation, but, in his opinion, Benson inflicted ‘unforgiveable injuries’ on the Sonnets.48 The taint of piracy began with Malone’s adoption of the 1609 quarto of the Sonnets for his copy text in his 1780 supplement to Johnson and Steevens’ edition of Shakespeare’s plays. In his 1790 edition of Shakespeare Malone described Benson’s anthology as ‘of no authority or value’ and since then a succession of commentators have assumed that Benson’s Poems was a pirate venture. Raymond MacDonald Alden demonstrates that Benson took his text from the 1609 Sonnets quarto, the 1612 Passionate Pilgrim and Englands Helicon, and assumes that his ‘object’ was ‘to represent this as a new publication’ and that he ‘deliberately intended to deceive’.
45 Roberts 2003a, 159. Cathy Shrank notes that the ESTC lists 33 extant copies of Benson’s anthology compared to 12 copies of the 1609 Sonnets. Cathy Shrank, ‘Reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets: John Benson and the 1640 Poems’, Shakespeare, 5.3, (2009), 271-291, 279. 46 Josephine Waters Bennett in ‘Benson’s Alleged Piracy of Shake-speare’s Sonnets and of Some of Jonson’s Works’, Studies in Bibliography, 21 (1968), 235-48, 235. More recently Kate Rumbold refers to it as ‘John Benson’s disparaged edition’ (Rumbold 2011, 98). 47 Duncan-Jones, 42. 48 John Kerrigan, ed. The Sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint (London: Penguin, 1986), 427, 46. 89
Alden suggests that Benson instructed his compiler to mingle the material drawn from different sources and to rearrange it in such a way as to enhance the attractiveness of the book and conceal its unoriginal character’.49 Hyder E. Rollins in his 1944 Variorum edition of The Sonnets and John Dover Wilson in his 1966 New Cambridge edition of The Sonnets both believe that Benson’s omission of the 1609 dedication, his rearrangement and titles were intended to conceal his piracy. Carl D. Atkins remarks in his bibliographical study of Benson’s text that ‘Benson needed to hide both the fact that his text was pirated and that the majority of his poems were part of a sonnet sequence’.50 Such criticism regards Benson as a pirate or a bad editor rather than evaluating him as an anthologist. Much has been written about the 1609 Sonnets and this thesis is not the place to rehearse this, except to comment that Thomas Thorpe’s 1609 quarto Shake- speares Sonnets might also be deemed another anthology that creates a Shakespeare. There is no critical agreement as to whether Thorpe’s book was authorised by Shakespeare or assembled by Thorpe, whether A Lovers Complaint is Shakespeare’s, or when any of the poems were written.51 The order and format of Shake-speares Sonnets, whether authorial or the work of an anthologist, has allowed the sonnets to be read as a sequence rather than as a collection of poems and as an autobiographical outpouring with its own narrative and cast of well-known characters: the poet (Shakespeare) speaking in his own voice, the ‘Fair Youth’, the ‘Dark Lady’ and the ‘rival poet’. In fact, as Stanley Wells points out, the gender of the addressee is clear in very few of the sonnets.52 If Shake-speares Sonnets was not an authorised publication, it is ironic that, although the interpretive consequences differ, the work of the 1609 anthologist was not so very different in kind to Benson’s work as anthologist in his allegedly ‘garbled’ version of the sonnets and ‘fraudulent volume’.53
49 Raymond MacDonald Alden, ‘The 1640 Text of Shakespeare’s Sonnets’, Modern Philology, 14.1 (1916), 17-30, 27. 50 Carl. D. Atkins, ‘The Importance of Compositorial Error and Variation to the Emendation of Shakespeare’s Texts; A Bibliographical Analysis of Benson’s 1640 Text of Shakespeare’s Sonnets’, Studies in Philology, 104.3, (2007), 306-339, 307. 51 Brian Vickers’ argument that A Lovers Complaint was by John Davies persuaded the editors of The RSC Complete Works to exclude it. Brian Vickers, Shakespeare, ‘A Lovers Complaint’, and John Davies of Hereford (Cambridge: CUP, 2007). Duncan-Jones summarises the arguments on dating the Sonnets (12-28). 52 Online discussion in 2009 between Stanley Wells, Jonathan Bate and Paul Edmondson: ‘Understanding Shakespeare’s Sonnets’ < www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqOrItROxs >. 53 Stanley Wells in the discussion noted above. 90
Josephine Waters Bennett refutes the charges of piracy against Benson arguing that, while there is cause for ‘indignation at what Benson did to Shakespeare’s sonnets’, he took ‘considerable pains’ with the book. She regards Poems as ‘a gathering up of scattered and long out of print poems by and about Shakespeare, such as an admirer might collect’ and ‘an edition to rescue [the Sonnets] from oblivion’, desiring to ‘honor and commemorate Shakespeare’.54 Margreta de Grazia identifies Rollins as the first to suggest that Benson’s editing decisions and titles were intended to disguise the fact that the first 126 sonnets were addressed to a male, a theory that subsequent editors followed.55 She argues that Benson did not attempt to convert a male beloved to a female and that the number and nature of his ‘alterations’ has been greatly exaggerated. De Grazia also notes that the scant evidence as to how the sonnets were read before Malone divided them into two gendered groups suggests that sonnets 1 to 126 were not read as being addressed exclusively to a male, and that Benson, like many others, assumed that the sonnets were addressed to a female unless otherwise specified. Such criticism is, however, more interested in Shakespeare’s Sonnets and what Benson did to them than in Benson’s anthology per se. Critics have recently begun to consider Benson’s anthology on its own terms. David Baker argues that Benson re-presented Shakespeare’s sonnets in ‘Cavalier mode’, by which he means that Benson made Shakespeare’s poems seem more Jonsonian, moulded to be closer to the tastes of the time – more learned, urbane and courtly. Baker also acknowledges the significance of the non-Shakespearean and paratextual material in the anthology’s recreation of Shakespeare as a ‘cavalier lyric poet’.56 More recently, Megan Heffernan regards Benson as an editor of striking gentleness. She argues that Benson’s treatment of the sonnets both reflected the organisation of the 1609 quarto and was influenced in its material format, structure, organisation and volume and poem titles by Poems by J.D. (1633 and 1635) to bring Shakespeare’s poems closer to Donne’s.57 Sasha Roberts is interested in how early modern readers read Benson’s Poems and considers the book an important document in the transmission and
54 Bennett, 246, 248. 55 Margreta de Grazia, ‘The Scandal of Shakespeare’s Sonnets’, SS 46 (1993), 35-49. 56 David Baker, ‘Cavalier Shakespeare: The 1640 “Poems” of John Benson, Studies in Philology, 95.2 (1998), 152-173, 153, 169. 57 Megan Heffernan, ‘Turning Sonnets into Poems: Textual Affect and John Benson’s Metaphysical Shakespeare’, SQ , 64.1 (2013), 71-98. 91 reception of Shakespeare’s works in the seventeenth century and as ‘an exercise in canonisation’.58 She notes that Benson’s editing transforms the love triangle of the 1609 quarto into a more conventional literary romance between a lover and his mistress, agreeing with de Grazia that Benson did not do as efficient a job of removing allusions to same-sex passion as previous critics suggest and doubts whether sonnets addressed to a man would have upset early modern readers so much. She suggests that readers may have found the vitriolic portrayal of the Dark Lady more disturbing, describing how Benson’s editing ‘interrupts the persistent and obsessive cycle of desire, revulsion and dependency in these sonnets’.59 Her study of annotations in seventeenth-century copies of Poems indicates that readers of the sonnets appeared to value ‘their edifying comments that could be applied to life generally’ and that ‘the early modern act of commonplacing bypasses the issues that so interest modern criticism […] reading not the grand narratives that shape a literary work but their fragmented observations’.60 Cathy Shrank endeavours ‘to read Benson’s edition without prejudice’ and discover ‘one of the earliest critical and imaginative responses we have to a work which has otherwise left scant imprint on the literature of seventeenth-century England’, that is, Shake-speares Sonnets of 1609.61 Shrank considers Benson’s aim was to bring Shakespeare’s poems back to light and follows Roberts in finding his anthology an exercise in canonisation. She regards Poems by Wil Shake-speare Gent, as an exercise in nostalgia being one of a group of collections published posthumously in the years up to 1640 that included collections of poems by Beaumont, Carew and Randolph , all of which had the title ‘Poems’ and celebrated the status of the poet on the title page.62 Shrank suggests that Benson tried to update his material by designing the collection as a miscellany, the application of titles to individual poems being a feature of contemporary miscellanies. She perceives a plan behind Benson’s rearrangement, arguing that he sought to disrupt the order of the 1609 poems because he was responding to an ambiguity in the 1609 quarto as to whether it is a sequence telling a story or a miscellany with a narrative that is, at best, only sporadically discernible. She concludes:
58 Roberts 2003a, 143- 190, 159. 59 Ibid. 165. 60 Ibid. 169. 61 Shrank, 273. 62 Ibid. 275. 92
Benson accommodates but also limits both possibilities: he establishes some poems as narrative by drawing them together as a sequence. But at the same time he also segregates them from other poems so there is no impulse to read sequentially across the volume. There is consequently no temptation to read every lady as the same dark, unfaithful lady; every friend or young man as the same alluring, treacherously beautiful superior. Rather than representing the sincere outpourings of a consistent voice the poems in Benson’s arrangement seem to offer different poetic perspectives and invite a non-autobiographical mode of reading.63
The studies outlined are more interested in what Benson did to Shakes- peare’s Sonnets and his influence on how they were read and received rather than in Benson’s anthology in its own right and continue to regard it as an edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets.64 I will consider Poems: written by Wil. Shakespeare Gent as an anthology, examining Benson’s ‘labours’, as Warren’s poem describes the anthologist’s work, 65 to reveal the Shakespeare Benson presents. Much of the material Benson selected is not derived from the 1609 sonnets. The title-page identifies the anthology’s content as Shakespeare’s and this is bolstered by a frontispiece portrait of Shakespeare above a verse mixing original lines with lines from Jonson’s First Folio encomium. Benson’s address to the reader follows, then poems celebrating Shakespeare by Leonard Digges and John Warren. Benson used all but eight of the 1609 sonnets.66 The sonnets are printed under Benson’s titles, some individually, some grouped to form longer ‘poems’. Each poem is separated by horizontal lines across the page. Atkins’ article outlines the editorial or compositorial changes made and in only three cases, sonnets 101, 104 and 108, are pronominal changes made which alter the gender of the addressee.67
63 Ibid. 278. This segregation is not strict but her point is valuable. Shrank’s appendix treats the ‘Heywood poems’ as though Benson had taken them from Troia Britannica rather than from the 1612 Passionate Pilgrim. It also omits one of the Pilgrim poems PP21 ‘The amorous epistle of Paris to Hellen’ which Benson places with PP22 ‘Hellen to Paris’ after the other ‘Heywood’ extracts from Pilgrim and A Lovers Complaint. The Pilgrim extracts are otherwise almost, but not quite, in the order in which they appear in the 1612 Passionate Pilgrim. Benson also interspersed the ‘Heywood’ Pilgrim extracts with Shakespeare’s ‘Cupid’ sonnets 153 and 154 and A Lovers Complaint. (See Appendix 10). 64 Shrank refers to ‘Benson’s edition’, 273. 65 See note 43 above. 66 Sonnets 18,19,75,76,43,56,96 and 126 are omitted. The Passionate Pilgrim versions of sonnets 138 and 144 are used. 67 In 101 (sig.E1v) ‘her’ replaces ‘him’ in line 11, and ‘him’ and ‘he’ are replaced by ‘her’ and ‘she’ in line 14. In 104 (sig. E1v) ‘friend’ is replaced by ‘love’ in line 1 – though arguably ‘friend’ could be male or female. In 108 (sig. F6r) ‘sweet boy’ is replaced by ‘sweet love’ in line 5. 93
Other sonnets such as 20 and 110 remain as printed in 1609. Frequently sonnets are grouped consecutively, for example 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 are run together and titled ‘An Invitation to Marriage’. Interspersed among the 1609 sonnets are the first twenty lyric poems from A Passionate Pilgrim in the order in which they appear in that volume, apart from ‘The Passionate Shepherd to his love’ (PP19), which is placed later with its neighbour poem in Englands Helicon.68 The other Pilgrim extracts, originally from Heywood’s Troia Britannica, are printed after the 1609 sonnets and before A Lovers Complaint. Their order in Pilgrim is retained apart from the two ‘love epistles’ between Helen and Paris which are placed immediately after A Lovers Complaint. These are followed by ‘The Passionate Shepherd to his love’, two verses of the lyric ‘Take, O take those lips away’ (the first verse of which is used in Measure for Measure), and the poem known as ‘The Phoenix and Turtle’, here presented as two poems and abandoning the stanza form of the original Loves Martyr version. Orlando’s poem from As You Like It ‘Why should this a desart be’ follows. Then there are three poems on the death of Shakespeare before this part of the anthology closes with ‘Finis’. Under the heading: ‘An Addition of some Excellent Poems to those precedent, of Renowned Shakespeare, By other Gentlemen’ follow fifteen poems by other writers. Appendix 10 lists Poems’content . Benson’s title-page, frontispiece and other paratexts make clear that his anthology is all about Shakespeare, ‘an exercise in the institutionalization of Shakespeare’.69 I now consider the ‘Shakespeare’ Benson created. The title-page is to the point: what it offers are ‘POEMS: WRITTEN/BY WIL. SHAKESPEARE, / Gent.’. Purchasers would get some, not all Shakespeare’s poems (rights to the narrative poems being owned by others) but Benson appears to have aimed to assemble as many poems that had been published under Shakespeare’s name as he could. The title-page is repeated (undated) after the prefatory material and tribute poems and above the first of the Shakespeare poems is an internal heading ‘Poems by Wil. Shakespeare. Gent’. In all instances the wording is capitalized (apart from ‘Gent’) and ‘poems’ appears in the largest capitals on a line on its own. On the two title-pages the next most important word in terms of font size is ‘Written’ and then
68 Here Marlowe’s poem takes its opening line from the Pilgrim version and the remainder of its text from the Englands Helicon version. Likewise ‘The Nimphs Reply’ takes its first stanza from the Pilgrim version and the remainder of the text from Englands Helicon. The source stanza forms are not reproduced. 69 Roberts 2003a, 158. 94 the words ‘By Wil.Shakespeare Gent’: formatting that attaches the great significance to the fact that the reader has ‘poems’ (not sonnets or lyrics) and that they are Shakespeare’s. The frontispiece portrait mimics the Folio’s Droeshout engraving but now shows Shakespeare wearing an upmarket shoulder cape and clasping a laurel branch, suggesting his gentlemanly status and poetic achievement respectively. The verses beneath the engraving repeat Jonson’s phrases ‘Soule of th’age’ and ‘wonder of the stage’ and take the opportunity to assert Shakespeare’s ‘fame’ and the unparalleled quality of his works. This Shadow is renowned Shakespear’s? soule of th’age The applause? delight? The wonder of the Stage. Nature herself was proud of his designes And joy’d to wear the dressing of his lines. As neither man, nor Muse, can prayse to much, For ever live thy fame, the world to tell, Thy like, no age shall ever parallel.
Benson’s address to the reader explains that, unlike Shakespeare’s plays which at that date had been collected and printed in two Folio editions, his poems had not been preserved in ‘due accommodation of a proportionable glory’. Benson’s anthology aims to remedy this, ‘glad to be serviceable for the continuance of glory due to the deserved Author in these his poems’. Two poems about Shakespeare precede the Shakespeare poems: Leonard Digges’ ‘Upon Master Shakespeare, the Deceased Author and his Poems’. Curiously this is primarily concerned with Shakespeare’s ‘poems’ that are stage plays. Digges had contributed a prefatory poem to the 1623 Folio. He died in 1635 so this poem would not have been written for Benson’s anthology. Beginning with the premise that ‘Poets are born, not made’, Digges emphasises Shakespeare’s originality and individuality: ‘All that he writes/ Is pure his own’. He suggests that Shakespeare did not borrow from other writers, translate or write collaboratively (‘Nor begs he from each witty friend a scene/To piece his acts with’). Digges disparages contemporary playwrights, alluding specifically to Jonson, and praises some of Shakespeare’s dramatic characters and their ability to pack the theatre. The second poem is John
95
Fig. 4. Frontispiece Poems: written by Wil. Shake-speare, Gent.
96
Warren’s sonnet ‘Of Master Shakespeare’. This makes clear that Benson’s book is intended to revive Shakespeare and make his name ‘immortal’ through the ‘learned poems’ that are part of his legacy (‘after-birth’), to ensure that the poems are remembered and admired as well as the plays The dating of the three memorial poems that follow the Shakespearean poems suggests that Benson gathered existing available ‘tribute’ poems rather than commissioning any. That does not diminish their effect in the anthology’s creation of Shakespeare. The first poem, Milton’s ‘An Epitaph on the admirable Dramatic poet, William Shakespeare’ had already appeared in the Second Folio (1632), there unattributed, here attributed ‘I.M.’ . It seems to be a response to the following poem, ‘On the death of William Shakespeare, who died in Aprill, Anno dom. 1616’. Benson attributes this to W.[illiam] B.[asse]. Brandon S. Centerwall argues that the poem was closely based on a poem by John Donne and asserts that it is ‘the first known poem to be composed in response to Shakespeare’s death and circulated widely in print and manuscript at the time.’70 Centerwall also points out the poem’s specific agenda: that Shakespeare should be buried in Westminster Abbey as Chaucer, Spenser and Beaumont had been. Milton’s response argues that Shakespeare created his own memorial in his readers’ ‘wonder and astonishment’. Basse/Donne’s poem apparently predates Jonson’s poem in the 1623 Folio, since it responds to it, commenting ‘I will not lodge thee by / Chaucer or Spenser or bid Beaumont lie / A little further to make thee a room’. Benson’s inclusion of these two poems affirms the claim that Shakespeare be considered a poet on a par with Chaucer and Spenser. The final memorial poem is ‘An elegie on the death of that famous Writer and Actor, M. William Shakespeare’. The date and the author of this are unknown. It echoes both the Basse/Donne poem and Jonson’s 1623 tribute referring to Jonson’s ‘dirge’; here Shakespeare is the ‘age’s wonder’ (l.17) and the ‘rich soul of numbers’ (l.27), and this poem also asserts Shakespeare’s ‘fame’ (l.13). Before considering Benson’s manipulation of Shakespeare’s poems, I consider the impact of his ‘An Addition of some Excellent Poems to those precedent, of Renowned Shakespeare, By other Gentlemen’ (L2r). The sub-title to this section of the anthology stresses the quality of both the poems and the poets and again suggests that Shakespeare is both renowned and a gentleman. Though the poems
70 Brandon C. Centerwall, ‘Who wrote William Basse’s Elegy on Shakespeare? : rediscovering a poem from the Donne canon’, SS 59 (2006), 267-284, 267. 97 constitute a separate mini-anthology, they are bound to the preceding Shakespearean poems through their sub-title. The fifteen poems are mainly by contemporary poets, the so-called ‘Cavalier’ poets, except Beaumont and Jonson who had both died before 1640. Jonson’s and Beaumont’s poems are attributed; the remainder are not. They are mainly the work of Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew and William Strode (see Appendix 10) and had not been printed previously.71 The poems are short, varied in subject matter and predominantly love lyrics. Including them connects Shakespeare with the next generation of poets; just as Benson’s manipulation of the Shakespearean texts makes them appear more like the work of these later poets. Most of the poems in Benson’s anthology are taken from the 1609 Sonnets and, as noted, his rearrangement diverts readers from reading them as a sonnet sequence. It has been suggested that the sonnet form and sonnet sequence were outmoded by 1640 and certainly the longer poems that Benson creates from the sonnets are visually more like the appended contemporary poems. Nevertheless around a fifth of the sonnets used (31 of the 146) are presented as separate sonnets. Benson’s treatment of sonnet 122 demonstrates how his presentation of a sonnet operates. In the anthology it appears in a lengthy run of separate sonnets: numbers 120, 121, 122, 123, 124,125, 128 and 129 (sonnet 126, the last of the ‘fair youth sequence is omitted and sonnet 127 is used elsewhere). Benson’s titles divide them up more than Thorpe’s numbering, inviting each to be read in isolation and disrupting any train of thought running through the sequence. Benson’s gender- switching title ‘Upon receipt of a Table Booke from his Mistriss’ is not unreasonable as nothing in this sonnet suggests that it is addressed to a male. His title limits interpretation; the poem becomes an immediate response to a gift, whereas untitled, it can be read as if the poet has parted with a book given to him by his (male) friend claiming that his own memory provides a more lasting memento.72 Benson does not seem to have adopted a methodical approach to the sonnets by working through them in order, but when he grouped sonnets to create longer poems comprised of two to five sonnets he did not generally disrupt their original order. His groupings often follow a linked theme to create a longer ‘poem’ on that theme or a short ‘narrative. An example is Benson’s poem ‘In prayse of her beautie
71 Shrank provides additional information on the publishing history of these poems. 72 See Duncan-Jones, 354. 98 though blacke’ which links sonnets 130 to 132 consecutively, having prefaced these with sonnet 127. Interspersed among the 1609 sonnets are the extracts from The Passionate Pilgrim. Here Benson seemed inclined to work more methodically and it is harder to discern a creative or narrative logic behind many of the Pilgrim interpolations. The first of these appears at signature B1v where the first three poems in Pilgrim, versions of sonnets 138 and 144 and ‘Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye’, appear after a ‘poem’ created from sonnets 8 to 12 and titled ‘An invitation to Marriage’. They are followed by Sonnet 21, here titled ‘True Content’. The effect of this and the other Pilgrim interpolations is to emphasise the miscellaneous quality of the anthology both in poetic form and subject-matter. However the Pilgrim extracts originally in Heywood’s Troia Britannica are placed together to form a run of poems with classical subject-matter and there is thematic logic in the placing of Shakespeare’s ‘Cupid’ sonnets, 153 and 154, into this sequence (sig.F7r-G5r). Only the two Paris/Hellen ‘epistles’ are taken out of the Pilgrim order and placed after A Lovers Complaint. Again Benson appears to be mixing up form and subject matter for miscellaneous effect, although arguably the Complaint with its references to the lover’s ‘papers’ and ‘folded schedules’ follows the amorous love letters as the inevitable result of an ill-fated love.The remainder of the Shakespearean poems are also miscellaneous in form and subject matter – the pastoral tetrameters of The Passionate Shepherd, the linked pastoral poems from England’s Helicon, the song ‘Take, O take those lips away’, the untitled ‘Let the bird of loudest lay’ and ‘Threnes’ (together ‘The Phoenix and Turtle’) and finally Orlando’s ‘bad’ verses from As You Like It. The effect of Poems: written by Wil.Shakespeare, Gent. was to celebrate and keep alive the memory of a poet of the recent past and re-invent Shakespeare as a poet for the mid-seventeenth century. The framing paratexts and memorial poems, conventional in a volume collecting a writer’s texts, repeatedly assert Shakespeare’s lasting ‘fame’, his unparalleled skill and status as a poet worthy of other poets’ praises, and yet the anthologist did not let Shakespeare’s texts speak for themselves but adapted them for contemporary readers and added other contemporary poems. By collecting all the Shakespeare texts that he could and assembling them as a miscellany, a popular mid-seventeenth-century format, Benson creates a poet Shakespeare who is not a sonneteer but a gentleman poet to sit alongside the 99 contemporary poets of the ‘Addition’. His Shakespeare is one fluent in a wide range of genres, forms, metres and subject-matter but as in other miscellanies conventional heterosexual love is the predominant theme.
V
The three seventeenth-century anthologies considered in this chapter each present different Shakespeares. The degree to which they do this is compromised by the extent to which their readers would have recognised the unattributed Shakespeare extracts in The Wits and The English Treasury. The droll collections tend to support Bentley’s and Kewe’s appraisals of Shakespeare’s status in the seventeenth century as a dramatist, although the Shakespeare emerging from The Wits is the creator of great comic characters and situations. For readers able to link Shakespeare and his characters in the drolls, he appears as one among the ‘ablest’ dramatists of the recent past but not as omnipresent as Fletcher. Cotgrave created a Shakespeare who continued to be valued, as he was in 1600, as a source of commonplaces, wisdom or ‘knowledge’, and, occasionally, as an exquisite lyric poet. Although the extracts are unattributed, marginalia in some extant copies make clear that some early readers were able to identify this Shakespeare. Benson created a Shakespeare, who like other contemporary poets was worthy of his own collection of poems, and a poet relevant to a mid-seventeenth-century readership.
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3. Anthologising ‘the King of English Poets’ in the Eighteenth Century
I
Everyone agrees that, after a slow and steady upward climb, Shakespeare’s coronation as the King of the English Poets finally occurred in the middle of the eighteenth century. 1
Exactly when Shakespeare’s coronation took place is debatable, but most critics agree that by the end of the eighteenth century he had acquired National Poet status, shifting from ‘an admired dramatist but no more admired than Jonson or Beaumont and Fletcher’ to ‘England’s chief cultural icon’.2 This transition is the subject of a number of studies,3 but the contribution of anthologies has not been fully investigated, although Kate Rumbold has recently suggested that quotation books and anthologies played ‘a significant role in this process’.4 Anthologies collecting extracts from Shakespeare’s texts were not new in the century, but there were now many more than before and their significance as disseminators and creators of Shakespeare increased. Anthologies offered Shakespeare to readers who might not otherwise have had access to him: Shakespeare’s Complete Works remained for much of the century prestigious and expensive multi-volume productions, although some individual plays were also available.5 This chapter looks at studies that consider Shakespeare in eighteenth-century anthologies before examining significant anthologies that included extracts from his texts to assess the Shakespeares they created and whether anthologies contributed to the establishment of the National Poet or created alternative ‘Shakespeares’. Eighteenth-century anthologies incorporating Shakespeare’s texts, particularly those devoted exclusively to Shakespeare, were not as numerous as critics have suggested. Shakespeare anthologies did not, as Margreta de Grazia says, ‘proliferate’ in the second half of the century following the publication of Dodd’s The Beauties of Shakespear in 1752, and Dodd’s anthology was less influential than is often claimed.
1 Taylor Re-inventing, 114. 2 Jonathan Bate, The Genius of Shakespeare (London: Pan Macmillan,1997), 165. 3 See Taylor Re-inventing, de Grazia Verbatim, Dobson, and Bate. 4 Rumbold 2011, 92. 5 See Andrew Murphy, Shakespeare in Print (Cambridge: CUP, 2003), 310-338. 101
Gary Taylor says little about anthologies as anthologies in Re-inventing Shakespeare, but he argues that the printing and editing of Shakespeare’s texts during the eighteenth century encouraged the assembly of collections of Shakespeare extracts: Shakespeare’s plays had been throughout the seventeenth century, actions. They happened; they enacted a story temporally; they were acted out by particular persons from beginning to end; they acted upon an audience assembled in a certain place at a certain time. In the eighteenth century they became things; they became primarily books. Books are spatial, not temporal; any reader can skip backward or forward, dip in, pull out, pause, repeat. Books can be cut up and rearranged, as time cannot. The transformation of Shakespeare’s actions into books thus permitted and encouraged their disintegration into assemblages of quotable fragments.6
Taylor forgets that Shakespeare’s plays had become books in the previous century and that several seventeenth-century anthologists had collected Shakespeare extracts. Shakespeare’s plays continued to be performed in the eighteenth century, though frequently in adapted forms, but their parallel life as reading texts expanded and intensified. Whereas readers of Shakespeare’s plays in the seventeenth century were limited to the four folios and a small number of individual play quartos, in the eighteenth century an unprecedented number of multiple-volume editions of the plays were printed. In these the text was increasingly mediated by editors, many following the pattern of highlighting or isolating parts of the text established at the beginning of the century by Rowe and Pope. Pope’s Works of Shakespear (1725) is notorious for his habits of removing or demoting to the foot of the page passages exhibiting the ‘innumerable errors’ which, he believed, actors had infiltrated into the text; of marking ‘some of the most shining passages’ with marginal commas; and, where he considered ‘the beauty lay not in the particulars but the whole’, marking the entire scene with an asterisk.7 This had a different aim from the early-modern habit of marking commonplaces with marginal quotation marks; instead of drawing attention to passages to be extracted for the reader’s own use, eighteenth-century editors aimed to highlight passages (‘beauties’) to be admired and enjoyed for Shakespeare’s exquisite mode of expression or sentiment. Pope used the term ‘shining passages’ rather than beauties and his edition marked passages capable of
6 Taylor Re-inventing¸108. 7 Alexander Pope, ed., The Works of Shakespear, (London, 1725), I, xiv, xxiii. 102 being appreciated on their own. Pope’s practice, rejected by Theobald (1733) and Hanmer (1743-7), was restored by Warburton in 1747. Warburton not only indicated Pope’s shining passages with commas but also marked with marginal double commas many more passages that he considered ‘most deserving of the reader’s attention’.8 This practice was deplored by Johnson in his Proposals for Printing by Subscription the Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare: But I never observed that mankind was much delighted or improved by their asterisks, commas or double commas; of which the only effect is that they preclude the pleasure of judging for ourselves.9
The practice was abandoned by Johnson and subsequent editors. Nor was Johnson a fan of collections of beauties. In his Preface to The Plays of William Shakespeare (1765) he wrote: [Shakespeare’s] real power is not shown in the splendour of particular passages, but by the progress of his fable and the tenor of his dialogues; and he that tries to recommend him by select quotations will succeed like the pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his house to sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen.10
Pope’s edition also includes indices of ‘Characters, Sentiments, Speeches and Descriptions’. Pope did not initiate this: Rowe’s second edition of The Works, Volume VIII, (1714) had provided an ‘Index of the Most Beautiful Thoughts, Descriptions, Speeches &c.’. Rowe’s third edition (also 1714) reprinted this Index and in Volume IX included Charles Gildon’s Remarks on the plays and poems, with their extensive use of quotation. Taylor argues, ‘indexing and spotlighting, emphasized descriptive, sententious, narrative, undramatic passages, oratorio set pieces’ and ‘fragmented each play into an occasion for a few admired poems’.11 He emphasises the significance of the eighteenth century’s discovery of Longinus’ On the Sublime in enhancing Shakespeare’s status as a poet.12 Shakespeare’s plays did not fit the prevalent literary theories based on Aristotle and Horace; Longinus offered a classical theorist who allowed critics to sidestep Shakespeare’s ‘deficiencies’, to concentrate on his fine passages and turn Shakespeare’s perceived faults into signs of
8 William Warburton, ed., The Works of Shakespear (London, 1747), xx. 9 W.K. Wimsatt, ed., Dr Johnson on Shakespeare (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969), 55. 10 Ibid., 59. 11 Taylor Re-inventing, 82. 12 In 1712 Leonard Welsted produced the first English translation, The Works of Dionysus Longinus On the Sublime (London, 1712). 103 greatness. Taylor notes that eighteenth-century editions increasingly surrounded Shakespeare’s text ‘with an expanding border of annotation, an undertext of commentary that repeatedly interrupts a reading of the uppertext’ tending to fragment it into short passages.13 I would add that, as the footnotes increased and the ‘uppertext’ diminished, on many pages in eighteenth-century editions Shakespeare’s text resembles short poems. Taylor concludes that ‘the most shining passages’ Pope had identified were later ‘wholly extracted from the text of the plays and printed in enormously popular and influential collections’. He identifies three anthologies: Dodd’s The Beauties of Shakespear (1752), Enfield’s The Speaker (1774), and Knox’s Elegant Extracts (1789). Only Dodd’s anthology is devoted exclusively to Shakespeare. Taylor also cites two critical works: Elizabeth Griffith’s The Morality of Shakespeare’s Drama Illustrated (1775), which quotes heavily from the plays, and Kames’ Elements of Criticism (1762). He contends that Kames’ book ‘owed much of its popularity to the “numerous illustrations and quotations from Shakespeare” with which its arguments were substantiated, making it another handy anthology of purple passages’. Taylor adds ‘All these books went through numerous reprintings’.14 In fact Griffith’s book was reprinted only once (in Dublin in 1777) and many of the reprints of the others, which were extremely successful, appeared in the nineteenth rather than in the eighteenth century. In Shakespeare Verbatim, Margreta de Grazia demonstrates how the editor Edmund Malone worked with the late-eighteenth-century notion of the Romantic artist and national patriotism embedded in the psyche, to create a Shakespeare. Through his editorial insistence on authenticity, what Shakespeare actually wrote rather than what he ought to have written or may have written, on accurate biography, on correct attribution and on a chronology for the texts, Malone created an enduring notion of what Shakespeare is. Malone’s Shakespeare is the National Poet, a literary giant, a moral philosopher, a genius and a natural poet whose work developed chronologically. As Paul Werstine puts it, Shakespeare Verbatim shows how Malone effected ‘our sense of reading the plays that we call “Shakespeare” as if they were a window on the mind and sensibility of a single individual’.15 De Grazia is interested in anthologies from the later part of the eighteenth century, particularly
13 Taylor Re-inventing, 108. 14 Ibid., 107-8. 15Paul Werstine, Review ‘Shakespeare Verbatim’, SQ, 45.2 (1994), 231-4, 231. 104
Dodd’s Beauties (1752), the anonymous The Beauties of Shakespeare (1783) and Beckett’s A Concordance to Shakespeare (1787), all of which she regards as ‘assigning Shakespeare ownership over his words’. Like Taylor, she sees the origins of these anthologies in the indices added to editions of Shakespeare, but ‘while they begin as collections which exercise the critics and the reader’s sensibility, they end up as citations belonging to Shakespeare’, his own thoughts on a wide range of subjects.16 De Grazia links this to the changes in the use of quotation marks, explored in her essay ‘Shakespeare in Quotation Marks’.17 Quotation marks originally used to draw the reader’s attention to remarkable passages were, by the time of Malone, used to enclose passages that are imported from elsewhere and belong to a particular speaker or writer. Michael Dobson’s The Making of the National Poet discusses how and when Shakespeare became the National Poet. Dobson connects Shakespeare with English history arguing that his works were ‘successfully appropriated to fit what became the dominant nationalist ideology of mid-eighteenth-century England’, and that the transition in Shakespeare’s status ‘from the comparative neglect of the Restoration’ to the national pre-eminence celebrated by Garrick’s 1769 Shakespeare Jubilee is ‘one of the central cultural expressions of England’s own transition from the aristocratic regime of the Stuarts to the commercial empire presided over by the Hanoverians’.18 He has little to say about anthologies, naming only Dodd’s Beauties when he remarks that, as well as Shakespeare and his characters beginning to have independent lives in eighteenth-century novels and plays, the plays were also dispersed into quotable fragments or distilled into sermons. As I have shown, an independent life for some Shakespearean characters had begun earlier in seventeenth-century drolls. Dobson contends that, By the 1760s Shakespeare is so established as the morally uplifting master of English letters that his reputation no longer seems to depend on his specific achievements, his fame is so synonymous with the highest claims of contemporary nationalism that simply to be British is to inherit him, without needing to read or see his actual plays at all.19
16 De Grazia Verbatim, 202-3. 17 Margreta De Grazia, ‘Shakespeare in Quotation Marks’ in Jean I. Marsden ed., The Appropriation of Shakespeare (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), 57-71. 18 Dobson,12, 8. 19 Ibid., 214. 105
I suggest that anthologies played an important part in this inheritance or acquisition of Shakespeare without needing to read or see his actual plays. As noted, Leah Price’s The Anthology and the Rise of the Novel suggests that, following copyright reform in 1774, literary history became the anthologist’s job. Price argues that late-eighteenth-century anthologies established both the canon and the pattern of future anthologies and stresses the significant effect of the ‘near monopoly’ of a few school anthologies, notably Elegant Extracts and The Speaker. She quotes Knox’s prefatory claims to have selected on the basis of popularity, by public not private judgement: ‘It was the business of the Editor of a school-book such as this, not to insert scarce and curious works […] but to collect such as were publicly known and universally celebrated’; in other words to provide the essential literary extracts, or, what pupils ought to know.20 Price reiterates the notion that in the eighteenth century Shakespeare’s texts disintegrated into anthology pieces and, following Taylor and de Grazia, credits Dodd with ‘setting the precedent for two centuries worth’ of Shakespeare anthologies.21 Price notes that Knox and Enfield under-represent the drama but over-represent Shakespeare: the absence of other dramatists making him a special case. She discusses how anthologists manipulate Shakespeare’s texts: Anthologies attack the drama from two directions. First, editors strip the dialogue away from soliloquies and songs to produce snatches of lyric self- expression, and away from maxims to produce universally applicable truths. 22
Price is alert to the effect of anthologies on eighteenth-century readers, noting contemporary concerns regarding this: Johnson’s worry that by reading only passages from Shakespeare readers miss ‘his real power’; Hannah More’s arguments that the extract-maker’s collection of ‘A few fine passages’ lead to ‘the hackney’d quotations’ of seemingly accomplished young ladies who have effectively cheated and replaced reading the original works of an author with the reading of extracts; and Jane Austen’s observations in Mansfield Park that indicate the widespread acquisition of Shakespeare via anthologies.23 Though Price does not make the point
20 Price, 68. 21 Ibid., 80. 22 Ibid., 81. 23 Ibid. at 78, 74, 79. Price refers to the exchange between Edmund Bertram and Henry Crawford in Mansfield Park, vol. III, iii: ‘[…]I do not think I have had a volume of Shakespeare in my hand before, since I was fifteen[…]But Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. His 106 expressly, her comments indicate ways in which eighteenth-century anthologies created a Shakespeare. II
Early and mid-eighteenth-century anthologies that extract from Shakespeare and other writers
It is tempting to begin with Dodd’s The Beauties of Shakespear, since it is probably the best known eighteenth-century Shakespeare anthology, repeatedly dubbed the first Shakespeare anthology and the one that set the trend for countless others. Taking a more chronological approach and considering multi-author anthologies as well as Shakespeare ones, interrogates these claims. Eighteenth-century anthologies devoted entirely to extracts from Shakespeare’s texts (including reprints) are relatively few. Gildon’s Shakespeariana was published in 1718 and followed by Dodd’s Beauties in 1752. Surprisingly nothing of this nature appeared around the time of Garrick’s Jubilee in 1769, when many consider that Shakespeare became the National Poet. My research has uncovered only another two Shakespeare-exclusive anthologies published in the eighteenth century: the anonymously compiled The Beauties of Shakespeare (1783), which ran to several editions, and A Select Collection of the Beauties of Shakespeare (1792).24 Other books I consider, which come close to being Shakespeare anthologies, are Elizabeth Griffith’s critical study and Beckett’s Concordance and The Picturesque Beauties of Shakespeare (1783-7). Extracts from Shakespeare were included, in varying amounts, in several eighteenth-century anthologies alongside extracts from other writers (see Appendix 11 for anthologies considered in this chapter.) To put things into perspective, however, it should be noted that such anthologies were vastly outnumbered by poetical miscellanies gathering contemporary verse, around a thousand of which were published during the century.25 Anthologies including Shakespeare extracts and extracts from other writers fall into a range of categories: some had educational
thoughts and beauties are so spread abroad that one touches them everywhere[…]His celebrated passages are quoted by everybody; they are in half the books we open, and we all talk Shakespeare, use his similes, and describe with his descriptions[…]To know him in bits and scraps is common enough’. 24 Anon, The Beauties of Shakespeare Selected from his Plays and Poems (London: Kearsley, 1783). Anon (J.A. Croft ), A Select Collection of the Beauties of Shakespeare (York, 1792). 25 See Digital Miscellanies Index < www.digitalmiscellaniesindex.org>. 107 purposes, as verse writing primers or providers of passages for honing oratorical and writing skills; some celebrated English/British poetry, often displaying a patriotic tinge; and others offered moral wisdom. Collections of the beauties of various writers were another eighteenth-century phenomenon but only three anthologies expressly collected Shakespeare’s beauties. Many eighteenth-century anthologies organised their material in the commonplace book way under alphabetically arranged topics. De Grazia argues that this was ‘to assist readers in their own speaking and writing rather than preserve the best lines from the best authors’.26 Daniel Cook’s discussion of eighteenth-century Beauties collections points out two ways of reading such anthologies: readers might wish to look up a variety of topics – love, marriage or sentiment – in the works of Shakespeare or Pope alone, and thereby build up a piecemeal knowledge of a noteworthy literary figure. Or the reader might read up on hope or death across his or her library in comparative disregard for the status of the authors involved.27
From the eighteenth century onwards anthologies invariably identified their extracts’ authors. Rumbold follows de Grazia in suggesting that attribution is significant in marking a shift ‘in the definition of anthologies from gathering shared ideas or “common places” freely available to all to displaying the private property of authors’.28 Culler, writing about Bysshe’s ‘Collection’ of extracts in The Art of English Poetry (1702), thinks attribution marked a change in the way such books were used: Between Poole and Bysshe there has occurred a slight recession from the schoolroom in the world of human letters and there is now some thought that the collection should attract readers as well as writers to its purchasers. The latter as the recipients of pilfered good will not be too curious about the origin of quotation or how they were come by; but a reader, as a legitimate purchaser, will ask a guarantee with his.29
Attribution in such collections was not an entirely new anthological habit but had been patchy in the past. Bysshe’s seventeenth-century predecessors Cotgrave and Poole did not attribute, yet the earlier anthology closely resembling Bysshe’s ‘Collection’, Englands Parnassus, attributed extracts, and, like Bysshe’s anthology,
26 De Grazia, ‘Quotation’, 61. 27 Daniel Cook, ‘Authors Unformed: Reading “Beauties” in the Eighteenth Century, Philological Quarterly, 89, 2-3 (2010), 283-309, 286. 28 Kate Rumbold, ‘“All the Men and Women Merely Players’: Quoting Shakespeare in the mid- Eighteenth Century Novel’, PhD Thesis University of Oxford, 2007, 14. 29 Culler,867. 108 functioned partly as a commonplace book for its readers to mine and partly as an anthology of poems. Attribution is an important element in the eighteenth-century anthology’s creation of Shakespeares. However a multiple-author anthology was read, attribution meant that readers could not fail to recognise Shakespeare extracts and absorb the Shakespeare created and shaped by the anthologist’s work. Anthologies using Shakespeare’s texts exclusively were clearly significant in creating eighteenth-century Shakespeares, but anthologies with extracts from many writers were important too, since they greatly out-numbered Shakespeare anthologies Their contribution to the creation of eighteenth-century Shakespeares has been neglected. I consider first multiple-author anthologies that pre-date or are roughly contemporary with Dodd’s Beauties and then consider some published in the second half of the century when Shakespeare’s status as National Poet is generally thought to have become established.
The Art of English Poetry, 1702
Bysshe’s The Art of English Poetry, ostensibly an aid to writing poetry, follows in the tradition of Poole’s The English Parnassus. Culler, interested in the anthology’s influence on ideas about English verse form, suggests that whereas Poole’s book was intended for classroom use, Bysshe’s was ‘for the serious poet’. The book has three sections: I. Rules for Making Verses; II. A Dictionary of Rhymes; and, III. A Collection of the most Natural, Agreeable, and Noble Thoughts, viz. Allusions, Similes, Descriptions and characters of Persons and Things; that are to be found in the best English Poets.30 Culler regards Bysshe’s anthology as ‘the ultimate source of at least three distinct literary genres: the rhyming dictionary, the dictionary of quotations and the didactical prosodical treatise’.31 In fact The Art of English Poetry is not like a dictionary of quotations or a commonplace book; the extracts are mostly far too long for that. The ‘Collection’, comprising the bulk of the book, gathers verse extracts making the volume as a whole overwhelmingly an anthology. Whether The Art of English Poetry was used as text book/thesaurus by would-be poets or read as an anthology of poems is unclear.
30 Edward Bysshe, The Art of English Poetry (London, 1702). 31 Culler, 860. 109
Coinciding with the fifth edition in 1714, Bysshe published a very similar book, The British Parnassus, with a new rhyming dictionary and collection of extracts running to nearly 1000 pages. His preface described this as ‘a Repository, where may be seen at one View the Gold and Jewels of our Poets’, indicating his underlying anthological rather than didactic motivation. The Art was commercially successful with nine editions between 1702 and 1762, and was revised and enlarged until the content crystallised in the sixth edition in 1718. Culler indicates that the 1718 edition includes extracts from the following writers: Dryden (1,201), Pope (155), Cowley (143), Butler (140), Otway (127), Blackmore (125), Shakespeare (118), Milton (117), Rowe (116), Lee (104), Garth (59), Waller (44) and ‘a number of minor Restoration poets’.32 Culler’s breakdown and Bysshe’s own list of authors cited indicate that far more extracts were taken from contemporary poets than from earlier writers. I have scanned the 1718 edition and found over 100 extracts from Shakespeare’s plays (see Appendix 12). Bysshe’s manipulations, additions, omissions, his use of contemporary adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays by Dryden, Davenant, Tate and Otway, which he frequently (mis)attributes to Shakespeare, and his ‘cutting and pasting’ techniques make precise identification and enumeration of the extracts problematic. The Collection’s extracts are assembled under alphabetically organised topics. Bysshe’s methodology makes the text resemble an anthology of long (contemporary) poems under their topical titles. The extracts follow one another in close order without clear divisions to create patchwork poems. Abbreviated marginal attributions barely distract the reader’s eye and speech prefixes are usually removed. All Bysshe’s Shakespeare extracts are from plays. Othello and Hamlet are used most. Short commonplaces are selected as well as longer extracts, but these one or two line aphorisms do not stand out as such but merge into Bysshe’s longer poems. Occasionally extracts from one text are presented as a poem, for example, ‘Player’ which takes lines from one of Hamlet’s soliloquies.33 Elsewhere extracts from two scenes in King Lear are run together (‘Behold a Cliff, whose high and bending Head Looks dreadfully down on the roaring Deep’ and ‘How fearful | And Dizzy ‘tis to cast ones Eyes so low: …’) to create the poem ‘Cliff’.34 Most of
32 Culler, 867. 33 Ham 2.2.553-568. Page 283 in the 1702 edition. Later editions add lines from other texts. 34 Lear 4.1.667-68 and 4.5.11-22. 110
Bysshe’s patchwork poems, however, contain extracts from a variety of writers. For example, ‘Grief’ begins with lines from Hamlet (‘Tis not alone my Inky Cloak…’) which are followed by extracts from Dryden, Congreve and Otway before an extract from Richard II (‘Of Comfort no man speak…’) and then more extracts from Blackmore and Dryden.35 ‘Witch’ uses numerous extracts cut and pasted from Macbeth, passages from Dryden’s translations of Virgil’s Eighth Pastoral and Book IV of the Aeneid , a passage from ‘Mr. Stafford’s translation of Horace’s Satires, a passage from Book II of Paradise Lost and finally another extract from Macbeth.36 Bysshe afforded Shakespeare a presence among the ‘best English poets’, but as Culler’s statistics show, it was a far from a dominant presence. He explains this is because Shakespeare’s style was not in fashion:37 For tho’ some of the Ancient, as Chaucer and Spenser, and others, have not been excell’d, perhaps not exceeded by any that have succeeded them […] yet the Garb in which they are cloath’d, ‘tho’ then Alamode, is now become so out of Fashion, that the Readers of our age have no ear for them: And this is the Reason that the Good Shakespeare himself is not so frequently Cited in the following Pages, as he would otherwise deserve to be.38
Bysshe’s view of Shakespeare remained unchanged in his preface to the ninth edition of The Art in 1762. Indeed Bysshe often preferred to use the texts of contemporary adaptors of Shakespeare in preference to the original. Nevertheless Shakespeare is included as a poet (not a dramatist), one not as fully appreciated by early eighteenth- century readers as Bysshe considers he should be, and disguised in Bysshe’s patchwork poems as a contemporary poet. A number of mixed-author anthologies followed Bysshe chronologically and methodologically in the first half of the eighteenth century, often recycling many of Bysshe’s Shakespeare extracts. That so many were published and frequently re- issued indicates a buoyant market for such books. Extracts from Shakespeare were disseminated to a large readership via these anthologies and they gradually acquired an independent existence apart from the plays. Since extracts were attributed to Shakespeare, these anthologies cumulatively created a Shakespeare who was increasingly recognised as the author of these beauties or poems.
35 pp.155-6 1702 edition. 36 pp.374-6, 1702 edition; pp.272-4, vol. II, 1718 edition. 37 Rumbold also makes this point: Rumbold 2011, 92. 38 Bysshe,1702 Preface, unpaginated. 111
Fig. 5 ‘Witch’ from The Art of English Poetry, 1718.
112
The Complete Art of Poetry, 1718
Charles Gildon’s two-volume The Complete Art of Poetry was published in 1718, the same year as the sixth edition of Bysshe’s anthology.39 It is significant for making a special case of Shakespeare, with its Shakespeare-only collection, Shakespeariana, within Volume I, which I discuss later. Volume I also contains a treatise on poetry and poetry writing and, although a similar exercise to Bysshe’s, Gildon was anxious to distinguish the two books. He claimed that whereas Bysshe ‘aims only at giving rules for the Structure of an English Verse, at Rime, and the like’ and ‘settling a sort of Dictionary of Epithets and synonymous Words which he tells us is the End of his Collection’, his ‘design’ was ‘to give the Reader the great Images that are to be found in those of our Poets, who are truly great, as well as their Topics and Moral Reflections’.40 Gildon claims to have been ‘pretty large’ in the use of extracts from Spenser and to have ‘gone through Shakespear’, both writers whom, Gildon asserts, Bysshe had rejected. Volume II comprises Gildon’s ‘Collection’ of extracts. He used around three-fifths of Bysshe’s extracts and added 486 new passages including 166 extracts from Spenser and 154 from Shakespeare.41 Gildon’s list of authors used included contemporaries like Rowe, Dryden and Addison, earlier English writers like Fletcher, Jonson, Milton, Shakespeare, Sidney, and Chaucer, French and Italians like Corneille, Racine, Boileau, Petrach and Tasso and many Greek and Latin writers. The extracts from classical and foreign writers are frequently from translations by Dryden and Pope. Gildon organised extracts under alphabetically arranged topic headings, attributed all of them, and, in Shakespeare’s case the source text is also indicated. As a separate book, Volume II is an anthology to read for pleasure rather than a practical commonplace book or thesaurus. Readers are intended to enjoy both the poetic expression (‘Images’) and the ideas (‘Topics and Moral Reflections’) of the ‘truly great’ poets used. Shakespeare is recognised among such poets but is not prominent since Volume I’s Shakespeariana was devoted to him.
39 Charles Gildon, The Complete Art of Poetry (London, 1718). 40 Ibid., Preface, unpaginated. 41 Culler, 867. 113
Thesaurus Dramaticus, 1724
Subsequent anthologies dispensed with essays on prosody and aimed to entertain readers and celebrate poetic gems. Thesaurus Dramaticus confines itself to extracts from the drama ; ‘all the celebrated passages, soliloquies, similes, descriptions and other poetical beauties’ in English plays, according to the 1724 title- page.42 Extracts are attributed ‘with the Names of the Plays, and their Authors referr’d to in the Margin’,43 and are arranged under alphabetically organised subject headings. Thesaurus Dramaticus was very successful with a further two-volume edition in 1737, a three-volume edition in 1756 re-titled The Beauties of the English Stage, and a four-volume edition, now The Beauties of the English Drama in 1777. Each edition added extracts. The anthologist pays lip-service to an educational purpose, hoping the reader ‘maybe delighted and in some measure instructed’, claiming to have been persuaded to publish ‘for the benefit of young gentlemen’ and their education in writing and oratory.44 The preface indicates that the anthology was regarded as a patriotic celebration of English drama: It is agreed, I think by all that understand our Language, that we have equall’d, if not surpass’d all other Nations in Dramatic Poetry; and that our Tragedies excel those of other Countries, both in Majesty of Style, and Variety of Incident: and that this Part of Drama is a sort of Poetry particularly adapted to the Martial Genius of the British Nation.
The 1777 preface reasserts this patriotism: by selecting and drawing attention to ‘beautiful passages from English Theatrical Writers’ particularly those ‘that enforce virtue, liberty, morality and patriotism and that decry vice’, the anthologist performs a public duty: Not to be acquainted with the beauties of our Dramatic Authors, which are so very numerous, is an injustice to the nation […] for in them may be seen the most admired precepts, strong and natural descriptions, elegant thoughts, brilliant wit, and the most beautiful diction […] to enable the rising generation to pay due tribute to their countrymen, was a considerable inducement to the present undertaking, which contains the essence of our most refined geniuses. It reflects honour upon the nation and exemplifies its literary character; and it is presumed will convince the world, that the English Dramatic Writers can justly boast as bold imagery, as daring metaphors, as warm fancy, as glowing imagination, as spirited
42 Anon., Thesaurus Dramaticus (London, 1724). 43 Ibid.,Title page. 44 Ibid. sig.A2r/A3v. 114
language, and a strain of poetry as sublime and enthusiastic, as any nation in the universe.45
The first edition’s list of authors and plays used includes many post- Restoration dramatists like Dryden (with 21 texts used), Otway, Lee and Rowe. Earlier dramatists listed are Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher and Shakespeare, with twenty-eight plays of his plays used. All editions include extracts from Shakespeare, the 1724 edition containing over 250 Shakespeare extracts, but he is nowhere singled out as pre-eminent. The 1777 edition also includes extracts from other Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists (Chapman, Middleton, Massinger) and extracts are now arranged under each heading in the order that compiler believed they were written: ‘in a chronological series, from the time of Shakespeare to the present period which will enable the reader to trace the progress of particular sentiments through a variety of hands’.46 There is a good deal of Shakespeare in this later anthology and the Shakespeare extracts invariably come first after the headings to be followed by later writers. The anthologist refers to ‘the time of Shakespeare’ and the prominent placement of his extracts emphasises his presence, but Shakespeare is still regarded as one of a line of English dramatists, all ‘geniuses’ and the large number of extracts from more recent dramatists remains.
The British Muse, 1738
Thomas Hayward’s The British Muse was published in 1738 and reissued in 1740 as The Quintessence of English Poetry .47 It distinguishes itself from previous anthologies by focussing on poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and using extracts from both plays and poems. Hayward usually attributes extracts from plays with the dramatist and the play, whereas extracts from poems are simply attributed to the poet. Extracts are organised under subject headings alphabetically organised and thereunder presented in order of composition to ‘shew the gradual improvements of our poetry and language’.48 Hayward’s preface recommends his book by reviewing the shortcomings of earlier anthologies: they were confined to the
45 Anon.,The Beauties of the English Drama, (London, 1777), v-viii. 46 Ibid., vi. 47 Thomas Hayward, The British Muse, 3 vols., (London, 1738). 48 Ibid., title-page. 115 drama, used too many ‘detached epithets, fustian phrases and dictionaries of rhyme’, failed to attribute (‘cited their authors so blindly that no recourse can be had to their works’), misattributed or emended (‘continually sophisticate what they transcribe)’ and have neglected to consider ‘the many excellent ancient poets’ that Hayward’s book celebrates. The preface suggests mixed aims. Hayward will ‘digest whatever was most exquisite (‘the flowers’) in our poets, into the most commodious method for use and application’, claiming to have ‘the intelligence to know what compositions of value our country had produced’ and the ‘judgement to discern peculiar beauties amidst the obscurities of antiquated modes of speech, and the great superfluity of matter that surrounds them, like stars in winter nights, with gloom and void’.49 As ‘reader general for mankind’ he saves his readers’ time by providing a ready-to-use collection of poetic ‘flowers’. There is also a didactic/moralistic purpose: in choosing subjects Hayward has preferred ‘what concerns the improvement of real life’: Every leaf includes many lessons, and is a system of knowledge in a few lines. It is a guide in the actions, passions, fortunes, misfortunes, and all the vicissitudes of life […]. Whilst it amends the heart; it informs the head 50
Hayward used a good deal of Shakespeare, mostly long extracts presented to resemble poems. He considered Gildon’s Shakespeariana too short to do that ‘divine and incomparable poet’ justice, but apart from this prefatory praise Shakespeare is not singled out for pre-eminence.
The Beauties of Poetry Display’d, 1757 and A Poetical Dictionary, 1761
Two mid-century anthologies published around the time of Shakespeare’s coronation as ‘the King of the English poets’also extracted from Shakespeare’s plays. The Beauties of Poetry Display’d offers ‘A large Collection of beautiful Passages, Similes and Descriptions’ from ‘celebrated poets’ followed by essays on
49 Ibid., xviii, xviii-xix, xix. 50 Ibid.,xxiv. 116 poetic genres and versification.51 Extracts are again placed under alphabetically arranged topic headings with corresponding letters at the top of each page, dictionary fashion, to guide readers; for example, ‘ABS’ at the top of the page containing extracts under ‘Absence’. This feature adapts the book for readers interested in the topic rather than the poet, although extracts are attributed. It is an anthology rather than a dictionary of quotations as short ‘quotes’ and long passages of poetry are included. The inner and running title to the ‘Collection’, ‘The Entertaining Companion: or Poetical Miscellany’, reveals the anthology’s major function. The preface declares a two-fold aim: ‘Use and Pleasure’. The (practical) use comes from the provision of ‘examples to the Rules already delivered […] pointing out to the Reader the Manner in which the most celebrated poets have handled every subject’. The preface also hopes that the book would be ‘an agreeable amusement to every Reader’.52 Shakespeare is included on the title-page list of authors but, within the pages of the collection, extracts from Shakespeare are thinly spread compared to extracts from later writers like Dryden and Pope. Although the compiler mentions Shakespeare among the ‘celebrated poets’ used he is not pre-eminent here. Samuel Derrick’s A Poetical Dictionary: or the Beauties of the English Poets alphabetically displayed (1761) styles itself a dictionary but resembles The Beauties of Poetry Display’d .53 Its four volumes are organised under alphabetically arranged topic headings. Attributions indicate authors and source texts. Passages range from short two-line aphorisms to much longer passages. Extracts from Shakespeare’s plays are sprinkled throughout and he plays a part in this anthology’s celebration of English poetry, but is not pre-eminent. The title-page cites Shakespeare, Johnson (sic), Beaumont and Fletcher as writers used, but they are outnumbered by later poets. Derrick’s preface continues the patriotic tone detected in The British Muse: that there is no modern language more happily adapted to express the various and delightful stiles of poetry than the English […] so no nation can boast greater poetical ornaments. Shakespear alone is proof of this; but we have many others nearly equal to those vaunted of in more sunny climes and who might have reflected glory on the most esteemed ages of antiquity.54
Derrick aims to celebrate English poetry and rescue it from neglect:
51 The Beauties of Poetry Display’d, 2 vols. (London; Dublin, 1757). 52 Ibid., xxxiv 53 Samuel Derrick, A Poetical Dictionary, 4 vols. (London, 1761), vii/viii. 54 Ibid., vii-viii. 117
If our own [poets] furnish us with the most admirable precepts, strong description, elegant thoughts, brilliant wit, and beautiful diction, is not the neglect of them unpardonable? to conquer this neglect, and make the rising generation pay due tribute to the merits of their countrymen, is one of the ends of this collection.55
He suggests that previous collections have fallen short, especially Bysshe’s, for being filled with too many translations of classical writers. He claims astonishment that, in a nation producing so many writers, an anthology such as his, ‘that adds to the reputation of [the] country, by exhibiting […] the essence of her most refined geniuses’ has been so long ‘overlooked’.56 Derrick singles out three poets for special mention: there is ‘the rapid boldness of Shakespear’ who ‘alone’ is ‘proof’ of English poetry’s greatness, Milton’s ‘astonishing sublimity’ and Dryden’s ‘unbounded genius’. Here Shakespeare shares pre-eminence. The book aims to appeal widely: to ‘the man of knowledge and erudition’ who will ‘find an index to refresh his memory’, to the ‘preceptor’ who will find ‘proper themes to enrich the mind of his pupils’ who will ‘reap instruction from amusement’, and as ‘an agreeable present to the ladies’. Derrick indirectly acknowledges the utility of the collection in providing ready-made quotations, accepting that readers will probably not bother with the source texts: The variety and brevity of the quotations will afford [the young gentleman reader] an inexhaustible fund of pleasure, to which he shall always be induced to return, while perhaps it would be very difficult to engage him to go attentively through a large and connected performance.57
III
‘Miscellaneous pieces’: later eighteenth-century anthologies that extract from Shakespeare and other writers
Extracts from Shakespeare were included alongside extracts from other writers in several anthologies published towards the end of the eighteenth century: Enfield’s The Speaker (1774), Knox’s Elegant Extracts (1789), and Scott’s Beauties
55 Ibid., vii-viii. 56 Ibid., viii. 57 Ibid., x/xi. 118 of Eminent Writers (1794).58 All were revised and reprinted numerous times before the end of the century and lived on into the nineteenth century reaching a large readership. They were influential, not only in canon formation as Price argues, but also in creating Shakespeare. All three anthologies include a good deal of Shakespeare, but within the context of their multiple-writer collections he remains one among many, mostly contemporary, writers. For The Speaker, Enfield selected ‘miscellaneous pieces’ from ‘the Best English writers […] disposed under proper heads with a view to facilitate the improvement of youth in reading and speaking’.59 He chose lengthy set-piece speeches and dialogues (see Appendix 15), giving them titles but omitting source details. Extracts are organised generically into ‘Books’ collecting, for example, ‘pathetic pieces’ or ‘narrative pieces’. About half of the thirty-eight Shakespeare extracts are presented as poems without speech prefixes and the remainder (mostly dialogues) are presented as dramatic extracts, as one would expect in an oratory text- book. Enfield occasionally edits intrusively; several speeches are cut and intervening dialogue is omitted to make a longer ‘poem’. This is most marked in ‘Othello’s Apology’, ‘Lear’ and ‘Antony’s Funeral Oration over Caesar’s Body’ (see Appendix 15). Shakespeare is well represented in Enfield’s anthology but is far from predominant among the, otherwise mostly contemporary, writers used. Knox selected passages from Shakespeare in his ‘pieces of poetry selected for the improvement of Youth in Speaking, Thinking, Composing: and in the Conduct of Life’.60 He aimed to select for school pupils the passages from Shakespeare and other writers that the young needed or ought to know: ‘what is publicly known and universally celebrated’. The third ‘Book’ of Elegant Extracts (extracts ‘Dramatic, chiefly from Shakespeare’) contains a large number of Shakespeare extracts, covering 112 of its 133 pages. Like Dodd, Knox worked methodically through the plays and extracts are printed in the order they appear in the play. Each extract has an explanatory title and reading this ‘Book’ is like reading a condensed version of each play. Visually the pages of Shakespeare extracts
58 Vicesimus Knox Elegant Extracts, or Useful and Entertaining Pieces of Poetry (London, 1789); William Enfield, The Speaker (London, 1774); William Scott, Beauties of Eminent Writer, (London, 1793/4). 59 Title-page, Speaker. 60 Title-page, Extracts. 119 resemble pages from an anthology of poetry containing short poems each with their own title. William Scott’s Beauties of Eminent Writers falls into the same category as Elegant Extracts and The Speaker. It too was successful commercially: first published in 1793 with a supplement also in 1793, it was reprinted in two volumes in 1794, 1795 and 1799. A number of speeches from Shakespeare’s plays are used in the 1793 supplement and more added in the second edition of 1794 (see Appendix 15). However, in the 1794 edition the Shakespearean passages are confined to the ‘Speeches and Soliloquies’ section in Volume I, where they comprise five of the fifteen extracts, and to the ‘poetical and dramatic pieces’ section in Volume II, where they comprise eight of the eighteen extracts. In both volumes they are greatly outnumbered by passages from other writers. The repeated inclusion of the same extracts, and the frequency with which anthologists presented them as poems demonstrates how, by the last quarter of the century, many passages had acquired a life of their own and now circulated as poems by Shakespeare. The following passages, included by Enfield, Knox and Scott, are typical examples: Mercutio’s ‘Queen Mab’ speech; Antony’s oration over Caesar’s corpse; Henry IV’s soliloquy on sleep; Henry V’s speech before Agincourt; and, Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy. This suggests that these famous speeches had now become ‘essential Shakespeare’. The multi-author anthologies considered, while recognising Shakespeare, do not elevate him above other English poets, apart from occasional eulogies in prefatory material. Their commercial success and large readerships meant they could disseminate Shakespeare to a wider public beyond readers of his plays and poems and audiences at performances of his plays. Their use of extracts from his texts, often the same ones, made their readers aware of the Shakespeare these anthologists created. This Shakespeare was not usually a dramatist but the source of aphorisms, snippets of wisdom, poetic ‘beauties’ and poems. Through anthologies readers could get to know this Shakespeare without being aware of his plays in their entirety or at all.
120
IV
Anthologies for Spouters
Eighteenth-century anthologies previously overlooked in studies of Shakespeare ‘anthologised’ are the collections of dramatic extracts targeted at members of Spouting Clubs. These clubs were slightly disreputable groups of amateur actors and would-be orators, typically young men, who met together, often in inns, to perform excerpts from plays and practise recitation, declamation and oratory, their tongues no doubt loosened by alcohol. The full title of one such anthology makes its content clear: The Beauties of the Stage: or, dramatic companion. Being a collection of the most favourite and admired scenes, soliloquies, speeches, passages &c. Selected from the most celebrated and approved Tragedies, Comedies, Farces And Other Entertainments of the Stage. Interspersed with a number of parodies, burlesques, Addresses &c. Together with several originals, and an essay on the Art of Acting. The Whole Calculated For the use and amusement of the lovers of the Drama. Particularly Candidates for either Sock or Buskin. 61 In the last three decades of the century there were many similar publications.62 Popular extracts were contemporary theatrical prologues and epilogues but several spouting collections included extracts from Shakespeare. The Young Spouter and The New Spouter’s Companion both used identical passages: ‘Wolsey’s Soliloquy on his Fall’ from Henry VIII, ‘Othello’s Soliloquy (sic) on his Marriage’ (‘ Most Reverend, grave and honoured signors…’) and ‘Hamlet’s Soliloquy on his mother marrying his uncle’ (‘O that this too, too solid flesh would melt…’). The Sentimental Spouter, aimed at amateur actors, provided a ‘Treatise on Oratory’ and included extracts from Shakespeare in its collection of ‘the most beautiful passages from all our acting plays’.63 Stone’s Beauties of the Stage drew quite heavily on Shakespeare. The title-page epigraph was ‘All the world’s a stage…’ and he included this speech titling it ‘Jaques’ (and followed it with a lengthy parody of the speech). Further extracts from As You Like It, Cymbeline, King
61 W.[illiam]S.[tone], The Beauties of the Stage (London: 1792). 62 Other titles include The Juvenile Roscius (1770), The Spouter’s Companion (1770), A compleat collection of the best and most admir’d prologues and epilogues that have been spoken at the theatres and the spouting clubs (1771), The British Spouter; or stage assistant (1773), The Sentimental Spouter (1774), The New and Complete English Spouter (1781), The New Spouter’s Companion (1790) and The Young Spouter (1790). 63 The Sentimental Spouter (London, 1774). 121
John, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and Othello were included (see Appendix 16) as well as a parody of Othello’s ‘Most potent, grave and reverend signiors…’ speech and a passage from Cibber’s version of Richard III. Extracts were grouped together by play and titles generally referred to the character speaking. At the foot of each the source play was given but the extracts were not attributed, either because this was expected to be known or that they were Shakespeare’s words was unimportant. Choices reflected plays and scenes popular on the London stage – for the parodies to work familiarity with the scenes and characters was required - and selections concentrated on dramatic character and incident giving plenty of scope for histrionics. These spouters’ anthologies celebrated Shakespeare the dramatist rather than the poet or philosopher. The inclusion of parodies indicates a lack of reverence towards Shakespeare, although, paradoxically, this might be interpreted as a reaction to his now established status as National Poet. The spouting anthologies show that, since the mid-seventeenth century drolls, yet more of Shakespeare’s characters and speeches had achieved an independent life outside the plays.
V Eighteenth-century Shakespeare Anthologies
I consider next eighteenth-century anthologies that collected extracts exclusively from Shakespeare’s texts and which also created distinct Shakespeares.
Shakspeariana, 1718
Charles Gildon has attracted little attention as an anthologist of Shakespeare despite being the first to collect and print extracts only taken from Shakespeare in Shakespeariana in Volume I of his The Complete Art of Poetry (1718). Interest in Gildon has concentrated on his literary criticism and his editing of Shakespeare’s poems in his Volume the Seventh, the unofficial ‘companion’ to Rowe’s The Works of Mr. William Shakespear (1709).64 Volume the Seventh, containing Shakespeare’s narrative poems and the text of Poems: written by Wil. Shakespear, Gent. (1640), is
64 The Works of Mr William Shakespear. Volume the Seventh (London,1710). 122 prefaced by Gildon’s An Essay on the Art, Rise and Progress of the Stage in Greece, Rome and England and closes with his Remarks on the Plays of William Shakespear and Remarks on the Poems of William Shakespear. Gildon’s aim in the Remarks was ‘to point out the Beauties of this Author, which are worthy of the Observation of all ingenious Lovers of this Art’.65 Paul D. Cannan identifies Gildon’s Volume the Seventh as the edition of Shakespeare’s poems most frequently printed between Benson’s Poems of 1640 and Malone’s inclusion of the poems in his edition of 1790.66 Gildon’s Remarks on the Plays comprise a short essay on each play and, as Cannan points out, Gildon used numerous quotations and anticipated Pope by highlighting passages by reference to specific pages in Rowe’s edition.67 The Remarks demonstrate that Gildon understood Shakespeare’s beauties to include elements of ‘Fable, conduct and Manners’ as well as passages of poetic beauty. When Gildon used quotations in Remarks he presented the extracts as poems under descriptive titles, such as ‘Against Conscience’ or ‘On Fashions’. Cannan’s essay is not concerned with Gildon as an anthologist, but he observes that Gildon’s presentation in Remarks is reminiscent of the format of poetic miscellanies and argues that, by carrying this format to The Complete Art of Poetry, Gildon created one of the most popular forms of presenting Shakespeare in the eighteenth century: the extract anthology.68 Cannan takes issue with Michael Dobson’s claim that Shakespeariana is the earliest example of the Shakespeare extract anthology arguing that Gildon had ‘clearly already formulated this approach in Volume 7’.69 I cannot agree; Gildon’s Remarks in Volume the Seventh only amount to an essay illustrated with quotations. Cannan is correct, however, when he writes: [p]resenting Shakespeare as snippets of poetry as opposed to dramatic action became eminently marketable, was essential in integrating Shakespeare into the popular and national culture and is still widely practiced today.70
He adds ‘William Dodd’s enormously successful extract anthology The Beauties of Shakespear (1752) – where passages are grouped under heads and illuminated with
65 Ibid., 257. 66 Paul D. Cannan, ‘Early Shakespeare Criticism, Charles Gildon and the Making of Shakespeare the Playwright-Poet’, Modern Philology, 102.1 (2004), 35-55, 36. 67 Gildon’s Remarks on the Poems deals mainly with the two narrative poems and an attack on Lintott’s recent reprint of The Passionate Pilgrim. He uses direct quotation in a very limited way in this essay. 68 Cannan, 52. 69 Ibid., 52-3. 70 Ibid., 53. 123 criticism – is clearly indebted to Gildon’.71 But Gildon was not quite the innovator that Cannan makes him; earlier anthologists like the compiler of Englands Parnassus (1600) and Bysshe in 1702 had selected and attributed Shakespearean extracts arranged under descriptive headings, although they did not use the term beauties to describe their extracts. Gildon’s important innovation was to devote a collection entirely to Shakespeare extracts, albeit that the collection comprised part of a larger book. Volume I of The Complete Art of Poetry contains a discussion of the art of poetry in five Dialogues (Parts I to V) and Part VI of this volume is a collection of extracts from Shakespeare’s plays: Shakespeariana: or the most beautiful Topicks, Descriptions and Similes that occur throughout Shakespear’s plays. The inner title, Shakespeariana: Select Moral Reflections, Topicks, similes and Descriptions from Shakespear, reflects both the dual nature of the extracts (sentiment and/or poetic expression) and the varied character of the extracts. Extracts are grouped play by play, and, as in the earlier Remarks, each is given a title. At the foot of each extract the dramatic character who speaks the lines and the play title are printed. As Cannan notes, the extracts are largely those referred to or quoted in the Remarks and in the same order; Gildon apparently recycled material already at hand. In the 1709 Remarks Gildon had already made an early claim for Shakespeare’s pre-eminence, writing that he was ‘asserted by the Number of his Admirers (whom to oppose is counted little less than Heresie in Poetry) to be the greatest Genius of the Modern times, especially of this Nation’.72 In the ‘Advertisement’ preceding Shakespeariana in The Complete Art of Poetry Gildon wrote that, finding ‘inimitable’ Shakespeare omitted by some modern ‘collections’ on account of his obsolete language, he ‘could not but present the reader with a Specimen of his Descriptions, and Moral Reflections to shew the injustice of such an obloquy’ and he claimed that Shakespeariana could have been even longer for Shakespeare ‘abounds in Beauties’. The passages taken from A Midsummer Night’s Dream illustrate Gildon’s methodology in Shakespeariana (see Appendix 13). He worked methodically through the plays and presents extracts in the order they occur. The nature of the extracts varies. There are short commonplaces, aphorisms like ‘The authority of a
71 Ibid, 52, n.34. 72 Volume the Seventh, 424. 124
Father’ (1.1.47-51) and ‘Similes’ (2.2.143-6) or examples of fine expression like ‘Night’ (3.2.178-181). Other extracts appear as short poems, for example ‘The Force of Fancy’ (5.1.4-22) and ‘A Fairy Bower’ (2.1.249-254). Gildon’s occasional retention of speech prefixes and his attributions to character and play work against completely divorcing the extracts from the play, but these features are outweighed by other aspects of his work as anthologist. His generally neutral titles universalise and remove the extracts from the action of the play and let them exist as separate texts, to be read for themselves. The application of titles separates extracts so Shakespeariana’s pages resemble pages in an anthology of poems. Gildon responded to the sentiment expressed but more frequently to the beauty of the language. Shakespeariana created from fragments of Shakespeare’s plays a Shakespeare who is not a dramatist but a poet to be read for his wisdom (or ‘Moral Reflections’) and his poetic beauties.
William Dodd’s The Beauties of Shakespear, 1752
William Dodd is remembered more for his unhappy end – he was hanged for forgery in 1777 – than for his anthology The Beauties of Shakespear.73 This anthology is routinely described as the first collection of Shakespearean extracts, one that released a deluge of similar anthologies, but an examination of it does not support these claims. Price makes the strongest claim for Dodd, crediting him with setting ‘a precedent for two centuries worth’ of Shakespeare anthologies and supplying a ‘template for dozens of subsequent Beauties devoted to other authors or no
73 William Dodd, The Beauties of Shakespear, 2 vols. (London, 1752). Dodd graduated from Cambridge in 1749 and attempted a literary career in London before ordination in 1751. He published over a wide range including verses, a novel, sermons and devotional works. He preached to fashionable London society and in 1754 was appointed tutor to the Earl of Chesterfield’s heir and also opened a small school. His lifestyle outstripped his income and in 1777 he was convicted of forging the signature of the Earl of Chesterfield on a bill of exchange. Despite a huge popular campaign for a reprieve (in which Dr Johnson played a prominent part) he was hanged in June 1777. BBC Radio 4’s Voices from the Old Bailey ‘Conmen and a Brawl in the Streets’ (5 August 2010) featured Dodd and made no mention of his anthology. The epitome to the DNB entry for Dodd by Philip Rawlings is typical in characterising him as ‘Church of England clergyman and forger’. < www.oxforddnb.com> Jonathan Bate mentions Dodd as a collector of Shakespeare’s ‘purple patches’ but regards him as more significant as a forger in his discussion of eighteenth-century Shakespeare forgeries (Bate, 86- 7). 125 authors’.74 Taylor remarks that ‘in 1752 William Dodd published the first of many anthologies of The Beauties of Shakespeare: for the next century and a half the quoting of Shakespeare was pandemic’.75 De Grazia suggests that in the second half of the century ‘books of Shakespearean quotations begin to proliferate, beginning in 1752 with William Dodd’s Beauties of Shakespeare, reprinted throughout the nineteenth century thirty-nine times’.76 In fact the number of books of Shakespearean extracts published in the eighteenth century is smaller than these comments suggest and it was only during the nineteenth century when a revised version of Dodd’s anthology, drastically re-edited as to render it almost unrecognisable, circulated widely. William Jaggard’s Shakespeare Bibliography, to which de Grazia refers, indicates only thirty-four nineteenth-century editions of Dodd’s anthology published between 1811 and 1893 and five eighteenth-century editions or reprints.77 The publication of another anthology called The Beauties of Shakespeare in 1783, variations in the spelling of ‘Shakespeare’ in titles and the extensive revisions that both these anthologies underwent, particularly in the nineteenth century, has confused the publication history and inflated Dodd’s influence. Michael Dobson is more measured in his assessment, regarding Dodd as the ‘most illustrious follower’ of Gildon’s Shakespeariana, important for dispersing Shakespeare’s plays into ‘quotable fragments’ and contributing to the establishment in the mid-eighteenth century of Shakespeare as a ubiquitous presence in British culture, recognised by a wider public than just the readers of or the audiences for his plays.78 Dobson also describes Shakespeariana as ‘the earliest example of this particular manner of commodifying Shakespeare for domestic consumption.79 Gildon rather than Dodd is the better candidate as innovator of the Shakespeare anthology as recognised today, having published his Shakespearean collection three decades ahead of Dodd. The titles of several eighteenth-century extract anthologies incorporate the word ‘beauties’; the first being Thesaurus Drammaticus in 1724. ‘Beauties’ shifted in meaning during the century. Barbara Benedict demonstrates this by reference to
74 Price, 80. 75 Gary Taylor, ‘Brush up your Shakespeare’, The New York Times Book Review, 22 July 1990, 28. 76 De Grazia, ‘Quotation’, 60. 77 See Appendices 11 and 29. 78 Dobson, 214. 79 Ibid., 119. Cannan argues that Gildon had already done this in 1709. 126
Johnson’s dictionary of 1755.The dictionary first defines ‘beauty’ as ‘That assemblage of graces, or proportion of parts, which pleases in its entirety’, that is, in accordance with neo-classical critical doctrine which values form in its entirety. Subsequent definitions characterise beauties as independent parts of a larger whole. ‘A beauty’ is ‘A particular grace, feature or ornament’ and, it is ‘anything more eminently excellent than the rest of that with which it is united’. Thus in the literary context beauties came to be understood as outstanding fragments of writing that could be severed from their surrounding text without losing their charm for the reader. Benedict also identifies how the notion of beauty in a text or extract began to shift from purely literary aesthetic value towards a moral application, such that the sentiment expressed becomes as important as the mode of expression.80 Dodd understood the term ‘beauties’ in this dual sense.
Benedict defines anthologies of beauties by comparison with miscellanies: Whereas miscellanies advertise light humorous, and fresh works, Beauties promise quality: the best pieces by the best authors. Miscellanies boast of their novelty; Beauties vend the vetted and venerable.81
In fact ‘Beauties’ collections encompassed a wide range of authors not just the ‘vetted and venerable’. George Kearsley, who dominated the Beauties market in this period, published the anonymously compiled The Beauties of Shakespeare in 1783 but also single-author collections of beauties extracting from contemporary writers such as Johnson, Sterne, Watts, Swift, Goldsmith, Fielding and Pope and his multi- author collections of beauties include a volume devoted to Milton, Thomson and Young. Thomas Janes’ much reprinted The Beauties of the Poets, which concentrated on ‘moral and scared poetry’, drew heavily on Milton and contemporary poets but early editions included two extracts from Shakespeare: ‘Cardinal Wolsey’s Lamentation on his Fall’ (H8 3.2. 352-373 and 429-458) and ‘The Soliloquy of a Fratricide’ (Ham. 3.2.36-72), both presented to look like the eighteenth-century poetry that surrounded them.82 During the second half of the
80 Barbara Benedict, ‘The “Beauties” of Literature, 1750-1820. Tasteful Prose and Fine Rhyme for Private Consumption’, 1650-1850 Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era. Vol.1 (1994), 317-346. 81 Ibid., 321. 82 Thomas Janes, The Beauties of the Poets (London, 1773). 127 century collections of beauties from contemporary writers greatly outnumbered such collections from Shakespeare.83 The Beauties of Shakespear leaves the clear impression that Dodd would have liked to have produced an edition of Shakespeare.84 His preface admits, [i]t was my first intention to have considered each play critically and regularly thro’ all its parts; but as this would have swell’d the work beyond proper bounds, I was obliged to confine myself to this collection of his poetical Beauties.85
Dodd wanted his collection of extracts to be ‘as correct’ as possible and was much exercised with previous editors, critics and commentators on Shakespeare, remarking that some editors ‘have not so much labour’d to elucidate their author, as to expose the follies of their brethren’.86 In view of Dodd’s fragmentation of the plays, there is unconscious irony when he comments ‘the text of an author is a sacred thing; ‘tis dangerous to meddle with it, nor should it ever be done, but in the most desperate of cases’.87 Dodd is attacking editorial emendation; a practice he felt derived from gaps in Shakespeare’s editors’ comprehension or scholarship rather than from faults on the part of Shakespeare. Correcting what are obvious typographical errors, the ‘numberless plain errors of the press’,88 is acceptable but other than that an editor, should not presume to alter any passages, (and to place those alterations in the text as the author’s) which are not really flat nonsense and contradiction, but only such to his apprehension, and unintelligible solely to his unenliven’d imagination.89
The editor’s task is to ‘elucidate the difficulties in an author’s texts, to set forth his meaning, and discover the sense of those places which are obscure to vulgar readers’ and this is what Dodd attempted to do in his anthology of ‘the finest passages’ from Shakespeare’s plays.90
83 See Cook ‘Authors Unformed’. 84 Edwin Eliott Willoughby’s ‘A Deadly Edition of Shakespeare’, SQ, 5.4 (1954), 351-357, discusses Dodd’s editorial ambitions. Willoughby suggests that an edition of Shakespeare’s plays was a long held ambition of Dodd’s which may have led to his unhappy end. He argues that in 1776 Dodd was working on an edition of Shakespeare, no doubt intended to shore up his precarious finances, and this led him to travel to Paris to engage artists and engravers. Willoughby suggests that Dodd’s fatal forgery may well have been to raise funds to pay for his project. 85 Dodd, I, xxv. 86 Dodd, I xii. 87 Ibid., vii. 88 Ibid., ix. 89 Ibid., x, 90 Ibid., vii. 128
Dodd’s approach may have evolved from the contemporary editorial habit of drawing attention to particular passages in Shakespeare’s plays, and thereby partially isolating them from the text. Fittingly, given Dodd’s editorial inclinations, his Shakespearean beauties were incorporated into several editions of Shakespeare known as the Blair/Reid editions,91 The Works of Shakspear. In which the beauties observed by Pope, Warburton and Dodd are pointed out. Together with the author’s life: a glossary; copious indexes; and a list of the various readings, published in Edinburgh in 1753 and reissued in 1769, 1771 and 1795. In these the prefatory material lists, play by play, ‘The Beauties of Shakespear regularly selected from each play. By William Dodd, B.A.’ using the titles Dodd gave each extract and providing page references for readers to locate them within each play. These editions, paradoxically, partially return Dodd’s extractions to the plays. Dodd’s idiosyncratic anthology defies categorisation. Its full title: THE BEAUTIES OF SHAKESPEAR: Regularly selected from each Play. WITH A GENERAL INDEX. Digesting them under proper HEADS. Illustrated with EXPLANATORY NOTES and Similar Passages from Ancient and Modern AUTHORS suggests confused aims. Font size and capitalisation draw attention to some of the book’s selling points as seen by its publisher and compiler. Although it promises to digest its contents under ‘proper heads’, the anthology is not a directory of quotations in the commonplace book tradition and, despite its title, it is not a collection of beauties, purple passages or quotable fragments, nor is it a collection of dramatic excerpts or poems extracted from the play texts: Dodd attempted to blend elements of all of these and more. Dodd’s preface indicates the reasoning behind his approach. Shakespeare is ‘like an eagle’ who ‘soars beyond the common reach and gazes undazzled at the sun’ and ‘in no single author, ancient or modern is such a collection of beauties to be met with or paralleled’.92 Dodd quotes extensively from Longinus’ On the Sublime and regards Shakespeare as the poet whose verses truly fit Longinus’ definition of the sublime: The true sublime […] is grand and lofty, which the more we consider, the greater ideas we conceive of it; whose force we cannot possibly withstand; which immediately sinks deep and makes such an impression on the mind as cannot easily be worn out or effaced: in a word you may pronounce that
91 See Murphy 2003, 321-337. 92 Dodd, I, vi. 129
sublime, beautiful and genuine, which always pleases and takes equally with all sorts of men.93
As important as the aesthetic quality of the extracts is their effect on readers. Dodd argues that Shakespeare has universal appeal, ‘for all humours, ages and inclinations, jointly proclaim their approbation and esteem of him’, 94 and he aims ‘to present the world with as correct a collection of the finest passages of the finest poet’ as he could: textual correctness is equally important as the selection of the finest passages in Dodd’s editorially inclined mind.95 The 1752 edition of Beauties comprised two volumes, each with a preliminary table of contents listing the plays.96 Dodd extracts from each play in turn, following the contents table order. Extracts appear in the order in which they occur in the play, under the heading of that play and act and scene sub-headings and each extract is given its own title. The play title appears as a running-title across the top of the recto pages. Both volumes index the extracts alphabetically under their individual titles, and provide page references for locating extracts in the anthology. The extracts from Hamlet are typical of the variety in the nature and purpose of Dodd’s selections. Some are commonplaces, being short descriptions, similes and aphorisms, all of which, apart from his act and scene framework, are presented as standalone fragments and divorced from the action of the play. Examples are: MORNING But look the morn in russet mantle clad Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastern hill. and CALUMNY Be thou chaste as ice, as pure as snow, Thou shalt not ‘scape calumny.97
Other extracts are long passages of dialogue, complete with speech prefixes and stage directions, for example, ‘SCENE X Part of the Scene between Hamlet and his
93 Ibid., xvi 94 Ibid., xvii 95 Ibid., p.xiii. 96 Volume I’s contents are: Comedies: AW, AYL,CE, LLL, MM, MV, MW, MND, MA, TS, Temp, TN, TGV,WT. Tragedies: AC, Cor, Cym, Ham. The Merry Wives is listed although no extracts from it are included in the anthology; the reader is directed to page xx of Dodd’s preface where this omission is explained. Volume II’s contents are: 2H4, H5, 1, 2 and 3H6, H8, KJ, JC, KL, Mac, Oth, R2, R3, RJ, Tim, TA, TC. 97Dodd, I, 216, 240. 130
Mother’ (3.4.37-207), or ‘Ghosts vanish at the crowing of the Cock, and the Reverence paid to Christmas-Time’ (1.1.146-163).98 Some extracts fall halfway between these categories, being either shorter extracts but still with speech prefixes, like ‘ACT II, SCENE II Ophelia’s Description of Hamlet’s mad Address to her’ (2.1.74-97), or passages without speech prefixes or stage directions but titled to link them to the play either through act/scene references or titles that make clear the dramatic situation and the character who is speaking. Examples are ‘Hamlet’s Soliloquy on his Mother’s Marriage’ and ‘SCENE VIII Hamlet on the Appearance of his Father’s Ghost’.99 Apart from the occasional use of act/scene references as headings, other extracts appear as standalone poems: for example ‘PRODIGIES’ (1.1.112-119), and ‘A Father’s Advice to his Son, going to travel’ (1.3.58-79).100 Some of Dodd’s titles relate directly to the source play like ‘Hamlet’s Reflections on his own Irresolution’ (the soliloquy ‘How all occasions do inform against me …’); some titles are half in and half out of the play, blending act/scene references with Dodd’s title, as in ‘Scene II. Life and Death weigh’d’ (for Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ speech) and ACT III, SCENE I / HYPOCRISY (for part of the dialogue between Polonius and the King ‘We are oft to blame in this …’ (3.1.45-52). Other titles seem to relate purely to their subject like ‘A Father’s Advice to his Son, going to travel’ and ‘Morning’. To this mix of poems, commonplaces and dramatic excerpts Dodd adds copious detailed footnotes displaying considerable scholarship. He thought that criticism of Shakespeare arose from failings in his critics not in Shakespeare himself, and believed that all that was needed was the elucidation of difficult passages. This Dodd attempted in his footnotes, a feature that would be more usual in an edition of the plays. A typical example is Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ speech which has four lengthy footnotes. The comments on Dodd by the publisher of The Beauties of Shakespeare (1783) are not without justification: As the title of this volume agrees with the work of a late unfortunate Author, it may be necessary to observe, that the present performance was begun with different views from its predecessor, and is concluded in a different manner.
98Ibid., 247, 215. 99Ibid., 231, 217, 222. 100Ibid., 213, 221. 131
The end of the former appears to have been intended chiefly as a vehicle to display the Compiler’s reading, and critical talents.101
The publishing history of Dodd’s anthology suggests it was not enormously popular or influential in the eighteenth century. Following the first edition of 1752, a second edition was published ‘with additions’ in 1757 and a third edition, in preparation at the time of Dodd’s arrest and execution, appeared posthumously in 1780 ‘with large additions and the author’s last corrections’, no doubt in the expectation that the anthologist’s notoriety would stimulate sales. An edition also calling itself a ‘third edition with additions’ was published in Dublin in 1773. The English Short Title Catalogue lists these four eighteenth-century editions of Beauties. Jaggard’s Shakespeare Bibliography lists five eighteenth-century editions: 1752, 1757, 1773, 1780 and 1782. 102 The 1773 edition it lists is presumably the one published in Dublin. I have been unable to trace other records of a copy of a 1782 edition; it may be a reprint of the 1780 edition. Thus it would seem that in the eighteenth century and early years of the nineteenth century Dodd’s Beauties was less successful than one of his devotional works Comfort for the Afflicted… ,which went through three editions in his lifetime (1764,1772, 1773) and four editions shortly after his death (1780, 1789, 1808, 1809). The extent to which Dodd’s The Beauties of Shakespear set a template for subsequent anthologies is less clear cut than Price suggests. The anthology’s content and appearance make it as close to an edition of the plays as to an anthology of verse. As Taylor suggests, the printing of Shakespeare’s plays facilitated the collection of fragments from his texts, and eighteenth-century editorial habits may have encouraged this, but, as I have shown, collecting Shakespearean extracts in printed anthologies had begun in Shakespeare’s lifetime. Dodd’s was not the first anthology devoted to Shakespeare: the Passionate Pilgrim (1598/9) had combined fragments of his play texts with some of his poems (or, more accurately, poems ‘apparently by Shakespeare’) and Benson had created an anthology with Shakespeare poems in 1640. Nor was Dodd the first anthologist to collect extracts exclusively from Shakespeare’s plays; Gildon’s Shakespeariana had done this. The numerous reprints of Dodd’s Beauties only began in the nineteenth century after
101 Anon., The Beauties of Shakespeare Selected from his Plays and Poems (London: George Kearsley, 1783), sig.A1r/v. 102 William Jaggard, A Shakespeare Bibliography ( Stratford-on-Avon: Shakespeare Press, 1911), 80. 132
Dodd’s original had been extensively revised. Jaggard’s Bibilography lists an 1811 edition (which I believe is a reprint of Kearsley’s 1783 Beauties) and then thirty- three printings of Dodd’s Beauties between 1818 and 1893. Dodd’s anthology continued to be printed in the twentieth century and the latest edition I have traced (excluding a 1971 scholarly facsimile) was published in 1936. Only the heavily revised 1818 edition of Dodd’s Beauties could be regarded as a template for collections of extracts from Shakespeare’s texts and examination of other eighteenth-century Shakespeare anthologies suggests that the 1818 edition of Dodd followed an established trend rather than setting it.103 The 1818 revisions bring Dodd closer to other eighteenth-century Shakespeare anthologies in terms of organisation and layout. Dodd’s original Preface is retained and John Britton’s (unattributed) ‘Remarks on the Life and Writings of William Shakespeare’, lifted from Whittingham’s 1814 edition of Shakespeare, are added.104 The extracts remain in their 1752 order under the relevant play title but grouped more tidily under Act subtitles. The extracts’ titles now omit all references to act and scene and are sometimes changed. In the A Midsummer Night’s Dream section, for example, ‘Nun’ becomes ‘A Recluse Life’, ‘Clock’ becomes ‘Time’, ‘Act II Scene 1 Puck or Robin Goodfellow’ becomes ‘Puck’ and ‘Scene VII Female Friendship’ becomes ‘Female Friendship’. Dodd’s footnotes, retained in all eighteenth-century editions, are completely excised. A new feature is small engravings illustrating scenes from the plays, again taken from Whittingham’s edition.105 The 1818 Beauties was not the first Shakespeare anthology to use illustrations but was certainly one of the earliest to do so and the first, that I am aware of, to place illustrations systematically throughout the text.106 In 1818 Dodd’s anthology, in the hands of its editors, arrived
103 The Beauties of Shakespeare regularly selected from each play: with a general index digesting them under proper heads. By the late Rev. W. Dodd, LLD (Chiswick:Sherwood, Neely and Jones, 1818). 104 The Dramatic Works of Shakespeare in Seven Volumes (Chiswick: C. Whittingham, 1814), reprinted in 1818. 105 See Stuart Sillars, The Illustrated Shakespeare 1709-1875 (Cambridge: CUP, 2008), 169-174. The engravings by John Thompson from drawings by John Thurston had a life of their own and were reprinted in 1825 as Illustrations of Shakespeare; comprised in Two hundred and Thirty Vignette Engravings… (London: Sherwood, Gilbert and Piper, 1825). Here each illustration is captioned with lines from the relevant play and thus operates as a pictorial anthology rather like The Picturesque Beauties of Shakespeare of 1783-7. 106 Kearsley’s 1791(?) edition of the 1783 Beauties of Shakespeare has a full-page engraving of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet opposite the title-page and later an engraving of Hamlet confronting his father’s ghost. The Picturesque Beauties of Shakespeare 1783-7 might also be considered an illustrated anthology. 133 at the format Gildon had adopted a century earlier, and it is this enduring format that has been so frequently reproduced and adapted. The 1936 edition of Dodd is not materially different to the 1818 one and retains the 1818 text and format.107 Illustrations now slip between the ‘real’ life of Shakespeare with photographs of Shakespeare’s Birthplace and Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, and the world of the plays with illustrations taken from paintings like Fuseli’s ‘The Weird Sisters’ and Dadd’s ‘Puck and the Fairies’. The illustrations commemorate Dodd too: a title-page drawing shows an eighteenth-century gentleman (presumably Dodd) seated reading, a bookcase behind him and books at his feet. In 1936 Dodd’s preface was replaced by an Introduction stressing that the anthology emphasises ‘the poetic rather than the dramatic qualities of Shakespeare’s verse’.108 It concludes with an account of Dodd’s unhappy end: Thus closed the unfortunate life of the Reverend William Dodd. Though his memory is rendered immortal by the account given by the faithful Boswell of Dr. Johnson’s magnanimity, many will prefer to remember him gratefully as the compiler of The Beauties of Shakespeare.109
In this way the most recent edition remembers Dodd both as a forger and a collector of Shakespeare’s poetry. Michael Dobson is correct to regard Dodd as a follower of Gildon. First Gildon and then Dodd made a special case for Shakespeare by choosing and organising extracts from his plays separately. Their selections are remarkably similar: Dodd used nine of Gildon’s choices and rejected four of them and, with the scope of two volumes, added twelve others (see Appendix 13). The main differences between the two anthologies are Gildon’s eschewal of footnotes, his greater avoidance of speech prefixes and the omission of play, act and scene subtitles. In The Beauties of Shakespear Dodd became entangled in his editorial ambitions and confused aims; its unwieldy format was the result. Dodd’s anthology is not a scholarly edition of the plays or a collection of beauties and poems but sits somewhere between the two. Thus it has not been imitated and has not influenced subsequent Shakespeare anthologies to the degree that has been claimed. The Beauties of Shakespear did not start a trend for the collection of extracts exclusively
107 A Shakespeare Anthology. The Beauties of Shakespeare Rev.Wm Dodd LLD.Introduction by Audley Hay Johnson with Photogravure Illustrations (London; Glasgow; Collins, 1936). 108 Ibid. iii. 109 Ibid. vii. 134 from Shakespeare, or establish a template for such collections, its significance was to release the potential for a single book dedicated to that end. Dodd asserts that Shakespeare was, at the mid-point in the eighteenth century, pre-eminent and universally admired. He claims to write ‘at such a time when universal and just applause is paid [to Shakespeare], and, when every tongue is big with his boundless fame’; Shakespeare is a genius whose beauties are unparalleled by any author, ancient or modern, there being ‘scarcely a topic, common with other writers, on which he has not excelled them all’. 110 I am not sure that, outside these paratexts, Dodd’s anthology succeeds in creating this Shakespeare. Dodd’s Shakespeare is a mixture of a philosophical moralist offering beauties that are commonplaces, aphorisms or exempla of poetic diction, and a poet offering exquisite short lyrics, and, in the footnoted editions before 1818, he is a dramatist whose ‘daring genius’ needs editorial help to reveal his sublimity.
The Beauties of Shakespeare Selected from his Plays and Poems, 1783
Over thirty years elapsed before a new anthology devoted to Shakespeare emerged: The Beauties of Shakespeare Selected from his Plays and Poems in 1783. This anthology was successful, reaching a wide readership, with at least six editions before the end of the century, and created a Shakespeare who was a poet, dramatist and moralist. Dodd had hoped his readers would find ‘a fund for observation, so much excellent and refin’d morality’, but also intended to draw attention to the sublime qualities of Shakespeare’s verse.111 The 1783 anthologist ostensibly selected Shakespeare’s beauties for their ‘morality’ believing that poetry, has, for its ultimate object, the interest and welfare of society; and, if properly directed, may be made instrumental in enlarging the mind, extending the views; and, by supplying materials for reflection, imperceptibly lead mankind to the knowledge and practice of virtue.112
Rumbold argues that in the latter half of the century Shakespeare collections were ‘not just gatherings of similes and shining moments, but places where elegant language and ethical principles are entwined with Shakespeare’s words and
110 Dodd, I, v, vi. 111 Dodd, Beauties vol.I,.xi. 112 1783 Beauties, i. 135 phrases’.113 She positions the 1783 Beauties alongside works like Griffith’s The Morality of Shakespeare Illustrated as one that regards Shakespeare as ‘a moral figure upon whom people can call directly for wise counsel’.114 If the content of the 1783 Beauties and its later editions are examined closely, however, this moral bias the anthology’s paratexts claim is less clear. The 1783 anthology’s preface now declared Shakespeare as the National Poet; ‘our divine Author’, ‘Universal Genius’ and ‘our great Dramatic poet’ whose ‘excellencies’ are ‘well known and […]universally acknowledged’. Shakespeare is also ‘one of the greatest Moral Philosophers that ever lived’.115 The anthology was aimed at a wide market, providing ‘a selection, useful for reference to the learned, for instruction to the ignorant, and for information to all’, phrases suggesting that the extracts’ value lies not in their intrinsic beauty but in their utility.116 A table of contents alphabetically listing the subject-headings encourages a topic-led approach to reading the book. The prefatory ‘Account of the Life of Shakespeare’ was an innovation for an anthology of Shakespeare extracts. Extracts are printed under alphabetically arranged titles/topics, the method Gildon had pioneered, and which became customary in the eighteenth century in collections of poetic extracts. Play, act and scene references are provided for every extract. Occasionally, in longer passages, speech prefixes and stage directions are included creating short dramatic excerpts.117 An ‘Appendix’ in the second section of the book is organised in the same way and contains extracts from ‘Passages omitted in the Plays’, presumably passages cut from contemporary acting editions and adaptations, or, routinely cut in performance. On the page the extracts look, as they do in Shakespeariana and the earlier Englands Parnassus: a mix of short aphorisms, snatches of exquisite poetic language and longer extracts that resemble short lyric poems. Consideration of the extracts taken from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, demonstrates this mix. There is considerable overlap in the extracts from this play used in this anthology and those used by Dodd and/or Gildon – only one is unique to the 1783 Beauties (see Appendix 13).This suggests a growing consensus as to the passages from Shakespeare that everyone ought to be aware of. More widely, the
113 Rumbold 2011, 93. 114 Ibid., 95. 115 1783 Beauties, i-ii. 116 Ibid., ii. 117 Brutus’ and Antony’s orations in Julius Caesar, 3.2, part of 5.1 Hamlet and part of 2.1 Julius Caesar. 136 anthology contains many of the plays’ famous’ speeches, usually presented as poems. For example, a section on ‘Cleopatra’ contains the well-known ‘quote’ ‘Age cannot wither her…’ and the equally famous description of her sailing down the river Cydnus (‘The barge she sat in …’).118 Unusually for eighteenth-century anthologies the short final section of 1783 Beauties contains ‘The Beauties of Shakespeare’s Poems’, with extracts from the Sonnets, Lucrece, Venus and Adonis and The Passionate Pilgrim. Here the anthologist is not searching for wisdom; he uses a number of Shakespeare’s sonnets and Pilgrim poems in their entirety and creates short lyric poems from sections from Venus and Adonis and Lucrece.119 Under the title ‘Harehunting’, for example, are lines from Venus and Adonis: ‘And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare…’ (679–708), and ‘Lucretia’ comprises lines from Lucrece: ‘Her lily hand, her rosy cheek lies under…’ (386-413). Subsequent ‘revised and enlarged’ editions of the anthology removed this section and replaced it with a selection of ‘principal scenes’: dramatic extracts taken straight from the play-text. Also described as ‘detached scenes’, these are the ‘famous’ scenes, those that everyone ought to know (see Appendix 14). In the undated sixth edition (?1791) these scenes comprise half of the anthology,120 the anthologist recognising Shakespeare as a dramatist as much as a philosopher and lyric poet. The anthologist of the 1783 Beauties hoped that his book’s utility would become more apparent the more it was examined and was ‘convinced that the study of the best Poet in the world will produce the most beneficial influence on the great interests of Society’.121 While both the first and the sixth edition’s paratexts proclaimed Shakespeare to be one of the greatest moral philosophers, the extracts and their presentation actually created a Shakespeare who is a provider of ‘useful’ aphorisms and wisdom but also a lyric poet and, increasingly, a dramatist.
A Select Collection of the Beauties of Shakespeare, 1792
This slight anthology, published anonymously in York and probably compiled by J. A. Croft, has no index, preface or table of contents and contains less
118 AC 2.2.241-244; AC 2.2.198-224 omitting Agrippa’s interjections. 119 Sonnets: 2, 9, 12, 18, 19, 64, 65, 70, 75, 94, 95, 98, 116, 123, 138,153. He uses part of sonnet 39. PP 10, 11 and lines 13-30 of PP14 120 The Beauties of Shakespeare selected from his Works to which are added the principal Scenes in the same Author (London: Kearsley, nd.). 121 Ibid., vi. 137 than seventy extracts. It incorporates Rowe’s short biography of Shakespeare as its preface and the anthologist’s aims can only be guessed at. Extracts are printed under alphabetically arranged topic headings that work as titles and run from ‘Adversity’ to ‘Warrior’. This arrangement breaks down at the end of the volume where extra headings and extracts have been added: ‘Cleopatra’s sailing down the river Sydnus’, ‘Henry V. Character’, ‘Macbeth’s Cheer or Grace’, an untitled passage from I Henry IV, ‘Warwick’, ‘King Henry’, ‘Hamlet’, ‘Iago’, ‘Miranda’. Many of the passages used also occur in Dodd and may have been filleted from his anthology or from one of the editions of Shakespeare which incorporated Dodd’s Shakespeare beauties. All the extracts are taken from the plays and act and scene references are provided. Extracts are a mix of short passages selected for poetic expression as in ‘Beauty’ (‘She doth teach the torches to burn bright…’, RJ 1.5.43-45) or for their ‘wisdom’ as in ‘Old Age’ (‘It is common to old age/ To cast beyond itself…’, Ham 2.1.115- 118) and short lyric ‘poems’ like ‘Mortality’ which comprises Jaques’ ‘All the world’s a stage…’ speech (AYL 2.7.139-166) . The Shakespeare this anthology created at the end of the century is again both philosopher and lyric poet.
VI
Eighteenth-century Shakespeare collections that come close to being anthologies
The Picturesque Beauties of Shakespeare Being a Selection of Scenes from the Works of the Great Author published in London between 1783 and 1787 is, as its title suggests, a series of engravings depicting various scenes from some of Shakespeare’s plays accompanied by short textual extracts from the relevant scenes. Depending on the binding, extracts may face the relevant illustration printed or be separated from it. Of the two copies in the British Library one is bound with the textual extracts printed on the versos facing the illustrations and one has the illustrations and texts on consecutive recto pages.122 The book is an anthology of pictures interleaved with an anthology of short passages from Shakespeare’s plays in which the visual aspect is as important as the textual aspect. Like the spouting collections, the anthology is theatrical since the pictures illustrate characters from the
122Shelfmarks 83.1.19 and 1871.c.41, respectively. 138 plays in the fictional world of the plays and the words are not poems or expressions of philosophical wisdom, but what those dramatic characters say at that point in the play. Other books that come close to being eighteenth-century Shakespeare anthologies are a work of literary criticism devoted to Shakespeare, Elizabeth Griffith’s The Morality of Shakespeare’s Drama Illustrated (1775) and Andrew Beckett’s Concordance to Shakespeare (1787). Griffith’s book is a collection of extracts in the manner of Dodd, since she offers a critical commentary which works methodically through Shakespeare’s plays summarising each and interspersing her comments with copious quotations from the plays. Her aim was to illustrate Shakespeare’s value as a teacher of morals. Andrew Beckett’s A Concordance to Shakespeare published, anonymously, in 1787 is another ‘near anthology’ that created a Shakespeare who is a source of commonplaces or wisdom.123 It was neither a collection of beauties nor a collection of quotations although it borrowed the commonplace format of alphabetically arranged topical heads and aimed to focus on the moral sentiments expressed in the plays. An example of his methodology is found in the section headed ‘Honour’. Beckett printed a number of passages from a variety of plays that relate to honour and contain the word ‘honour’. The extracts are short, more commonplaces than poems, and under each extract the source play and act and scene references are provided. Since Beckett’s concordance was, according to its long title, ‘suited to all the editions’ the reader was presumably expected to use the book in conjunction with reading the plays. Admitting that he has ‘broken and disjointed’ several of the speeches he adds ‘as the reader is referred to the act and scene of every play, in which the more beautiful parts of such speeches are to be found’ this does not need apology. In an Advertisement Beckett acknowledged his debt to Johnson and his aim to justify Johnson’s remark ‘that the plays of Shakespeare are filled with practical axioms and domestic wisdom; and that a system of civil and economical prudence may be collected from them’.124 His intention was to create a Shakespeare that was a source of wisdom; to make the poet sometimes speak in maxims or sentences, according to the ideas of Dr Johnson; and at other times to give his description of one and the
123 Andrew Beckett, A Concordance to Shakespeare (London, G.G.J. & J. Robinson, 1787). 124 Beckett, A2r/v, p. iii/iv 139
same affection or passion, as it is seen by different persons and at different seasons: or as it may be called forth by accidental, by foreign and opposed circumstances.125
VII
Eighteenth-century anthologies using Shakespeare’s texts reflect that century’s re-discovery of a Shakespeare from the previous century who is both a source of moral and philosophical guidance and a poet. Unlike their predecessors, eighteenth-century anthologists firmly attached Shakespeare’s name to his words. Instead of circulating as commonplaces to be used by the reader as his/her own, the extracts became Shakespeare’s own thoughts and wisdom as well as exempla of poetic excellence. The many eighteenth-century anthologists using Shakespeare’s texts with those of other writers expressed the aim of presenting their poets’ ‘morality’ and claimed to select extracts or his beauties as often for their wisdom and morality as for their poetic expression. Despite this their anthologies created a variety of Shakespeares; the moral philosopher certainly, but also the lyric poet and the creator of well-known characters and set-pieces, whether ‘poems’ or speeches. In the eighteenth century miscellanies collecting the verses of contemporary poets greatly outnumbered anthologies that included extracts from Shakespeare. When Shakespeare was included in multiple-author anthologies he did not dominate, although he was used more often than his contemporaries. There are a number of reasons for this. The anthologies celebrating the development of English poetry would not wish to over-represent one writer and, at the beginning of the century, as Bysshe had indicated, Shakespeare’s poetry was not to contemporary taste, although Gildon’s Shakespeariana vigorously challenges that assertion. In their paratexts none of the anthologies studied singled him out for special mention apart from Derrick’s, which in 1761 regarded Shakespeare as ‘proof’ the English poetry’s excellence. Anthologies devoted entirely to extracts from Shakespeare were the eighteenth century’s innovation – The Passionate Pilgrim and Benson’s Poems of 1640 had been anthologies of complete poems rather than extracts. Such anthologies
125 Ibid. A3v/A4r, p. vi –vii. 140 were, however, surprisingly few in the century that annointed Shakespeare as the National Poet and none of their paratexts described him as such. Many other contemporary writers, however, were the subjects of the numerous Beauties collections published in the last quarter of the century. Anthologies devoted to Shakespeare do make a special case for him and, during the century he was singled out from other seventeenth-century writers. Kearsley’s projected Beauties of the English Stage would have included passages from Jonson, Massinger and Beaumont and Fletcher, but did not appear and, Shakespeare apart, the only other seventeenth- century poet to appear in a Beauties collection was Milton and he had to share a volume with Thomson and Young.126 Not surprisingly and partly in self-justification, Shakespeare-exclusive anthologies made greater claims for his pre-eminence than collections from many authors. Early in the century Gildon called Shakespeare ‘the greatest genius of Modern times especially of this Nation’ in his Remarks and ‘inimitable’ in Shakespeariana. Dodd in the mid-century regarded Shakespeare as ‘the finest poet’ unparalleled for beauties by any other author ancient or modern.127 Towards the end of the century Shakespeare is described as a ‘universal genius’ by the compiler of the 1783 Beauties. Such assertions are, however, sprinkled untidily throughout the century and did not grow in momentum as part of a ‘slow and steady climb’in Shakespeare’s status.128 The way in which anthologists carried out their work had a significant cumulative effect. Attribution was no longer patchy so Shakespeare’s extracts were identified. Extracts were more usually presented as short poems or aphorisms rather than as dramatic extracts and were provided with titles, like poems. Most of the anthologies considered were successful publishing ventures running to many editions, and consequently reaching a large readership. They were relatively inexpensive compared to editions of the Complete Works and made extracts from Shakespeare’s texts available and affordable in print to a wide public. Crucially anthologists made Shakespeare available in easily digestible fragments; in a more accessible form than Complete Works or whole play texts.
126 The Beauties of Milton, Thomson and Young (London;Dublin, 1783). See Cook, 295. 127 Dodd, vi. 128 Taylor Re-inventing, 114. 141
Many Shakespearean passages are used repeatedly. Probably the most well- known ‘poem’, Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be…’ soliloquy, appears in numerous multiple-writer anthologies. It can be found under the same title, ‘Futurity’, in Bysshe’s Art of English Poetry , in Gildon’s Volume II of The Complete Art of Poetry , in Thesaurus Dramaticus , in The Beauties of the English Stage (1737 and 1756), in The Beauties of Poetry Display’d and in The Beauties of the English Drama. In The British Muse and The Quintessence of English Poetry it appears as ‘Self-Murder’ and in The Poetical Dictionary as ‘Existence’. In Elegant Extracts it is ‘Life and death weigh’d’. The two anthologies that provide passages for oratory practice, The Speaker and Beauties of Eminent Writers, hint at its dramatic origins and link it to a dramatic character when it appears as a set-piece speech as ‘Hamlet’s Soliloquy on Death’ and ‘Soliloquy of Hamlet on Life and Death’ respectively. The same extract appears in the Shakespeare only anthologies too. Gildon has it in Shakespeariana as ‘Death or to die’, Dodd’s Beauties (1752, 1757 and 1780) has it as ‘Life and Death Weigh’d’, and the 1783 Beauties includes it under the title ‘Suicide’. The same pattern can be discerned with many other passages. For example the lines ‘Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, | Is the immediate jewel of their souls…’ from Othello are printed under the title ‘Reputation’ in nearly all of the anthologies mentioned.129 This repeated use of the same Shakespearean extracts in anthologies spanning the century created standalone texts that circulated independently from their source texts. Eighteenth-century anthologies developed what Gildon and Rowe had begun with their indexes in Rowe’s 1714 edition of Shakespeare. Readers became acquainted with passages of Shakespeare’s play texts and recognised them as set- pieces, poems or famous quotes. Anthologies, whether exclusively collecting passages from Shakespeare or collecting from many writers, created a Shakespeare who was now known to many readers as the author of poems titled ‘Futurity’ or ‘Reputation’ rather than, or as well as, the writer of plays called Hamlet or Othello. These readers now knew, to borrow Knox’s phrase, ‘what is publically known and universally celebrated’ of Shakespeare. Anthologies circulated these set piece poems, philosophical thoughts and speeches to a wide readership, and they became
129 Exceptions are A Selection Collection of the Beauties of Shakespeare, Shakespeariana and Beauties of Emminent Writers which do not include this. The Speaker uses the passage as part of a longer dialogue titled ‘Othello and Iago’. 142 the ‘famous’ bits of Shakespeare. Anthology readers could become aware of and acquainted with Shakespeare without, necessarily, having any further acquaintance with Shakespeare’s plays in print or performance. With a large enough constituency of readers like this, the paratexual claims for Shakespeare’s genius could infiltrate the national psyche. That is the part that these anthologies played in the eighteenth- century’s coronation of Shakespeare as National Poet.
143
4. ‘Those poems and songs with which everyone ought to be acquainted’1: Shakespeare in Nineteenth-Century Anthologies
I
Dodd’s The Beauties of Shakspear is often credited with opening the floodgates to a deluge of anthologies collecting extracts exclusively from Shakespeare, but the number of such collections published in the eighteenth century was relatively low; the deluge came in the nineteenth century. The eighteenth century had witnessed an increase in the publication of Shakespeare’s texts, especially the plays but in the following century editions of Shakespeare’s works mushroomed and were more widely and more cheaply available than ever before. Facilitating this proliferation were the removal of copyright restrictions on Shakespeare’s texts in the late eighteenth century, technical advances in printing and paper-making leading to more and cheaper books, and many more potential readers resulting from a massive population increase and the expansion of elementary education.2 Many editions of Shakespeare’s works were made more affordable by being issued in inexpensive weekly and monthly parts.3 There was clearly a market for these editions, but purchasing a copy of the Complete Works was, for some, the acquisition of a cultural item for display as much as for reading. This is suggested by an 1864 advertisement describing Cassell’s Illustrated Shakespeare as a ‘monument’ with ‘the wondrous words of Shakespeare, inscribed and painted on [a] graceful tablet … worthy of a place in the palaces of the great’ but which would also ‘find its way into the lowliest cottage’.4 The vast number of poetry anthologies available in the nineteenth century, both those collecting from many writers and those exclusively Shakespearean, demonstrates a buoyant market for these collections. Anthologies provided a popular and accessible means of encountering Shakespeare and the prefatory material in many of them suggests that anthologists envisaged their books being read by a wide cross-section of society. Anthologies offering readers extracts from Shakespeare’s texts were important disseminators of Shakespeare in
1 Endpaper advertisement in The Shakespeare Anthology 1592-1616, 1899. 2 See Murphy 2003, chapters 8 and 9 and Andrew Murphy, Shakespeare for the People (Cambridge: CUP, 2008). 3 See Murphy 2003, 340-367. 4 Cassell’s Shakspeare Tercentenary Pocket Almanack (London: Cassell, Petter & Galpin, 1864), 32. 144 the nineteenth century, particularly to readers less inclined or able to read his texts in their original formats, and were significant creators of ‘Shakespeare’.
Anthologies, and their content and methodology, have attracted relatively little attention in studies of nineteenth-century Shakespeare reception. Adrian Poole writes that
it was often in bits and pieces that the Victorians encountered their Shakespeare in anthologies such as the durable Dodd’s (first published in 1752) or the brand new Palgrave’s Golden Treasury.5 Elsewhere he comments that ‘the importance of the anthology to understanding the way Victorians encountered Shakespeare cannot be overestimated’ arguing that anthologising Shakespeare’s texts was part of a Victorian attempt ‘to rescue Shakespeare the Poet from the theatre, from the flesh, from mortality’.6 Robert Douglas-Fairhurst finds a popular Victorian cultural model in a Shakespeare who issued timeless maxims via the anthologist’s replacement of each play’s narrative with a selection of free-standing fragments, but finds little Victorian consensus over what to make of a writer who ‘appeared more often in the form of parts than he did as a whole’.7
Kate Rumbold argues that nineteenth-century collections of extracts from Shakespeare ‘continue[d] to contribute to Shakespeare’s status’. She compares eighteenth-century anthologies that isolated his beauties from his many faults with nineteenth-century anthologies which were collections of his ‘gems’, that now ‘come to stand for the complete Shakespeare: the “most brilliant” rather than “the brilliant” pieces’.8 She discerns a nineteenth-century need to ‘mitigate’ Shakespeare for some readers and notes the development of niche markets. Rumbold asserts that ‘many’ collections of ‘wise words from Shakespeare […] packaged for domestic or personal use’ were the work of female authors. I understand her to refer here to collections of short proverbial and aphoristic extracts. She writes:
Their small, ornate book setting suggests that these lines are to be cherished and consulted in the home. Their domestic destinations are implied by the
5 Gail Marshall and Adrian Poole, eds., Victorian Shakespeare, 2 vols. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), Vol.2, 3. 6 Adrian Poole, Shakespeare and the Victorians (London: Thomson Learning, 2004), 157. 7 Robert Douglas-Fairhurst,‘Shakespeare’s Weeds; Tennyson, Elegy and Allusion’, in Victorian Shakespeare, vol. 2, 114-130, 117/8. 8 Rumbold 2011, 98. 145
female authors of many of these collections, who might be seen to perform on behalf of the customer or recipient the feminine activity of compiling a commonplace book.9
Her claim is not supported with evidence of female anthologists and my research suggests that very few nineteenth-century anthologies were created by women, or that the work of compilation was a particularly ‘feminine activity’. Of the sixty plus anthologies I have examined and listed in Appendix 17, only three are by women, the authors of seventeen remain anonymous or identified by initials and the remainder are by men. Where the anthologists are anonymous or identified only by initials I do not believe this hides female compilers but occurs where the compiler has added a minimal amount of text to Shakespeare’s words (as in collections of ‘pearls’, ‘gems’ and birthday books) and when the anthology was probably a publisher’s project, the book regarded as a product or gift item rather than a literary anthology.
Finding evidence to support Douglas-Fairhurst’s assertion that Shakespeare appeared ‘more often in the form of parts than he did as a whole’ is problematic. A search of the British Library’s catalogue for nineteenth-century Shakespeare anthologies produced the titles listed in Appendix 17. This underestimates the number of Shakespeare anthologies. Titles mislead and frequently do not indicate that they are anthologies. Shakespeare’s Morals (1880), Cupid’s Birthday Book (1875) and Cassell’s Shakespeare Tercentenary Pocket Almanack (1864) are just three examples of titles that hide that they are anthologies of extracts from Shakespeare. Shakespeare Birthday Books, a category of Shakespeare anthology proliferating in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, are not necessarily listed in library catalogues because they fall into a grey area between diaries and calendars which are not subject to legal deposit and collections of quotations or extracts, which are. The nineteenth-century Shakespeare Birthday Books which the British Library lists appear to be those produced by recognised book publishers. There is no record of others produced by souvenir and gift-trade manufacturers, who were either unaware of or flouted the legal deposit requirements or, perhaps, did not consider that they were publishing a ‘book’. Another kind of printed Shakespearean anthology
9 Ibid., 97. 146 that may not be found in library catalogues are those in non-book formats.10 Examples include The Shakespeare Draught Board Game (1864) on which ‘Shakespeare’s Sentiments and Wit’ are printed for the ‘edification and amusement’ of ‘Railway travellers and voyagers and the home circle’, and a set of greetings cards Shakspearian Gems. Six illuminated designs, suitable for Christmas and New Year’s Greetings,or for Presentation).11Despite the problems in identifying and quantifying Shakespeare anthologies and multiple-poet collections including extracts from Shakespeare, it is clear that in the nineteenth century Shakespeare’s texts certainly appeared very often in the form of parts.
Legal deposit libraries’ catalogues do not reveal how many times a title may have been re-printed or in what quantity, since publishers are only required to deposit second and subsequent editions if they are materially different from previously deposited books. For example, the British Library holds three copies of Trench’s A Household Book of English Poetry, which includes Shakespeare extracts: a first edition dated 1868, an edition of 1870 and an edition of 1889 describing itself as the ‘5th edition’; so another two editions were presumably published in the years between 1868 and 1889 and there may well have been subsequent impressions and editions too. Of the numerous multiple-poet anthologies of poetry published in the nineteenth century, many included extracts from Shakespeare’s texts. In addition to new titles, eighteenth-century anthologies which include Shakespeare continued in circulation. Examples are Ellis’ Specimens of the Early English Poets (1790), Anderson’s A Complete Edition of the Poets of Great Britain, (1793-5) and Ritson’s The English Anthology (1793-4). Two other eighteenth-century collections, Enfield’s The Speaker and Knox’s Elegant Extracts, both of which drew heavily on Shakespeare, were frequently revised and re-issued in the nineteenth century, and Dodd’s Beauties was far more successful in the nineteenth than in the eighteenth century, with at least twenty-two nineteenth-century editions.
10 To be an anthology an artefact must comprise a collection of printed (or otherwise permanently preserved) extracts from Shakespeare’s texts, and not merely use isolated quotations. 11 One of these games owned by The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust is displayed in Nash’s house in Stratford-upon-Avon. A modern version is ‘The Bard Game’ designed by Richard Heffer and Mike Siggins for Sophisticated Games which ‘contains hundreds of Shakespeare speeches’. See
The number of readers is not defined by print runs. Natalie Houston points out: Statistics regarding the readership of any particular anthology are difficult to obtain, in part because poetry collections were often shared among members of a household, so that for each copy purchased, anywhere from one to twenty persons might have access to it.12 Houston also notes that although many anthologies were published in numerous editions, ascertaining the exact size of each is difficult because publishers would frequently print a small first edition to test the market. She argues that an anthology that sold out more than two editions, even if each consisted of only 2000 copies should be considered fairly successful.
The nineteenth-century Shakespeare studies I have referred to tend to concentrate on Shakespeare-exclusive anthologies;13 I consider anthologies devoted to Shakespeare and those using Shakespeare and other writers, as both were significant creators of Shakespeare. The vast number of nineteenth-century anthologies compels me to focus on representative examples. Anthologies may be limited to a specific period or type of poem, or they may attempt to cover the whole spectrum of English poetry. The anthologist may have didactic and encyclopaedic aims: to give ‘a fair representation of our most important Poets’, or may aim ‘simply to delight the lover of poetry’.14 Content may be arranged chronologically, thematically or in a combination of the two. Chronological arrangement, the most common approach, tends to be organised by the poets’ dates of birth rather than by date of composition or publication and generally groups each poet’s texts together. I examine particular anthologies because they sold in great numbers and so reached a large readership, because they demonstrate different anthological methods, or because they were targeted at a particular class of readers.
Nineteenth-century anthology paratexts often reflect a rise in Shakespeare’s status from England’s National Poet to ‘the world’s greatest poet’15 and ‘the greatest
12 Natalie M. Houston, ‘Anthologies and the Making of the Poetic Canon’, in A Companion to Victorian Poetry, eds. Richard Cronin, Alison Chapman and Anthony H. Harrison (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), 361-377, 364. 13 Rumbold 2011, briefly considers the Shakespeare in The Golden Treasury. 14 J.C.M. Bellew, Poets’ Corner (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1868), vii; William Allingham (‘Giraldus’), Nightingale Valley (London: Bell & Daldy, 1860), v. 15 Leigh Hunt, Imagination and Fancy (London: Smith & Elder, 1844), 108. 148 genius the world has ever known’16. While helping to create this iconic Shakespeare, nineteenth-century anthologists also created other distinct Shakespeares: a lyric poet and a ‘wise’ Shakespeare, a moral philosopher offering readers his thoughts on a myriad of subjects.
I first consider anthologies collecting from many writers and, secondly, those exclusively Shakespearean.
II
The Golden Treasury, its predecessor and followers
The Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language, 1861
The massive success of The Golden Treasury makes it impossible to ignore.17 Selling well ever since it appeared in July 1861, it became a ‘standard’ anthology; ‘the best known and the best-selling anthology of English Poetry ever’ and ‘the best too’, according to Christopher Ricks.18 The number of nineteenth-century editions of the Treasury is unclear. Ricks’s edition lists twenty-seven editions,19 but Megan Jane Nelson claims there were thirty-six impressions before Palgrave’s death in 1897 and that the last identified figure for nineteenth-century reprints is ‘the 67th thousand’ from 1886.20 Whatever the exact numbers, its success is unquestionable and The Golden Treasury was a significant disseminator of Shakespeare’s texts in the second half of the nineteenth century and beyond.
16 Poets’ Corner, 169. 17 F.T. Palgrave, The Golden Treasury (London: Macmillan, 1861). 18 Christopher Ricks, ed., The Golden Treasury (London: Penguin Books, 1991), ‘Prefatory Note’. 19 Ricks writes: The four printings in the year of publication, 1861, were succeeded by reprints in 1862, 1863, 1865, 1870, 1872, 1874, 1875, 1877, 1878, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1883 x 2, 1884, 1885, 1886, 1887, 1890, 1891, 1892, 1894 and 1896. Until the Second World War, sales then averaged over ten thousand a year, with more than 650,000 copies printed by that time. (Ricks, 444) 20 Megan Jane Nelson, ‘Francis Turner Palgrave and The Golden Treasury’, PhD Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1985, 152. < https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/25947> . 149
Why The Golden Treasury was so successful is less clear. Nelson suggests it was a timely offering directed to a general audience among England’s newly educated classes in a handy pocket-sized single volume that declared itself complete:
By calling his collection The Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrics in the English Language, Palgrave meant, as he says in the preface “to include all the best original Lyrical pieces and Songs in our language, by writers not living, - and none beside the best “(xi). In a letter to Macmillan […] he was adamant that the title should not read “a collection of the best” because “if it is put ‘a collection of’ it does not clearly express that the book differs from all others in attempting to contain all the best.”21 Palgrave’s daughter recognised the anthology’s wide readership, writing:
The first edition of the ‘Golden Treasury’[…] was recognized from the beginning as the best anthology of its kind [… ]There is no doubt that this little book has taught many – in all ranks of life – to know and love much of our best lyrical poetry which might otherwise have always remained untrodden ground.22 In his dedication to Tennyson, Palgrave hoped that his anthology might reach all strata of society, prove ‘a storehouse of delight to Labour and to Poverty’ and ‘teach those indifferent to the Poets to love them’ whilst also encouraging those who love the Poets to ‘love them more’. Palgrave tried to accommodate readers at both educational extremities: his notes explain obscure words and classical references yet he chose a Greek epigraph (un-translated in the 1861 edition). Anne Ferry considers the anthology to be a pleasing artefact in terms of size and price and one which displays a classical simplicity without ostentation and pedantry.23 She also regards its success as founded in its ‘unique combination of advantages’, it being ‘at once inclusive and selective’ and having the historical scope of comprehensive anthologies while focussing on one kind of poem.24
The Golden Treasury limited itself to lyrical poems, by which Palgrave meant poems that are short: ‘we should require finish in proportion to brevity’; that have a unity: ‘each Poem shall turn on some single thought, feeling, or situation’ and are entire in themselves: ‘Excellence should be looked for rather in the Whole than in Parts’. Palgrave excluded ‘narrative, descriptive and didactic poems’, and rejected
21 Nelson, 121. 22 Gwenllian Palgrave, Francis Turner Palgrave; his journals and memories of his life (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899), 65. 23 Ferry 2001, 45. 24 Anne Ferry, ‘Palgrave’s “Symphony”’, in Victorian Poetry, 37.2 (1999), 145-161, 146. 150 blank verse and ‘the ten-syllable couplet’ as inimical to lyric poetry.25 Living poets were not used. Paradoxically, Palgrave’s Treasury has been regarded as hugely influential on subsequent anthologies and as completely unique: John Leonard offers a discussion of its lasting influence whereas Anne Ferry sees it as ‘one of a kind’ due to ‘the brilliant originality of its arrangement’.26
The Treasury’s four component ‘Books’ appear in chronological order although the poems within each are not arranged chronologically. According to Palgrave the Books can be thought of as ‘the Books of Shakespeare, Milton, Gray and Wordsworth’, the ‘Book of Shakespeare’ covering ‘the ninety years closing about 1616’.27 A brief contents page refers simply to the four Books, the Dedication and Preface, and the Notes and Indexes at the end. The Notes summarise each ‘Book’ with critical observations and explanations of obscure diction. There is an alphabetical index of authors with dates of birth and death and an alphabetical index of first lines. Every poem is attributed. The notes for the first Book indicate that ‘a strictly representative or historical Anthology has not been aimed at’,28 and Palgrave’s preface makes clear that the anthology’s arrangement was carefully planned to achieve ‘the most poetically-effective order’:
A rigidly chronological sequence, however, rather fits a collection aiming at instruction than at pleasure, and the Wisdom which comes through Pleasure:- within each book the pieces have therefore been arranged in gradations of feeling or subject.29 He sees this as analogous to musical composition: ‘The development of the symphonies of Mozart and Beethoven has been here thought of as a model, and nothing placed without careful consideration’.30 Palgrave’s symphonic approach combined the methodologies of both chronologically and thematically organised anthologies.
Readings of Palgrave’s arrangement broadly agree. Nelson considers that,
Each of the four books follows a similar thematic development: from nature, through the various phases of love – infatuation, passion, and disappointment
25 Treasury, ix –xii. 26 John Leonard, ‘Lyric and Modernity’, PhD thesis, University of Queensland, 1995, 83-93
- to mutability and death. Palgrave presents a series of poems on the same theme, each poem presenting a slight variation on the theme of, for example, absence or mutability.31 She argues that groups of poems can be read as sequences, although each also works alone. Ferry follows Nelson, seeing the poems placed in intricately connected sequences, within the frame of each Book, and arranged ‘in gradations of feeling or subject’ with ‘framing poems’ opening and closing each Book and connecting to the next Book. Ferry affirms that Palgrave’s ‘role is not to compile but to compose. He is not an editor but an author.’32 Palgrave was a self-consciously creative anthologist. Writing to Sir Alexander Grant in 1862 about the Treasury he said, ‘I hope you liked the arrangement and my notes &c. In this sort of paste-and-scissors authorship these trifles are all one can call one’s own.’33
I now consider the Shakespeare extracts Palgrave used, his manipulation of them and the ‘Shakespeare’ his anthology created. Book I is indeed ‘Shakespeare’s Book’: he is disproportionately represented by thirty-two poems out of a total of sixty-one poems from twenty-one poets. The only other poet with more than one poem is William Drummond (7). The remaining poets, with one poem apiece, are Anon., Marlowe, Nashe, Constable, Lodge, ‘Shepherd Tonie’, Thomas Heywood, Lyly, Webster, Drayton, Wyatt, Bacon, Sidney, Sylvester, Barnfield, Spenser, Dekker, the Earl of Oxford and Alexander Earl of Sterline. Palgrave’s own guidelines restricted his choice from Shakespeare, there can be no extracts from plays or longer poems, and he selected twenty sonnets, ten songs from plays and two poems from The Passionate Pilgrim (see Appendix 18). The songs are treated as detachable standalone lyrics rather than integral to the play. The Treasury’s longevity and commercial success make it significant in establishing the notion that these Shakespeare songs are discrete ‘poems’.
Palgrave’s Shakespeare texts are heavily edited. Nelson comments:
Palgrave’s editorial practice, based on the principle of presenting what he calls “the most poetical version,” encompasses a variety of other changes to the poems. In the preface, he announces that he has endeavoured “to present each poem, in disposition, spelling, and punctuation, to the greatest advantage (xi), and in fact the text of almost every poem in The Golden
31 Nelson, 22-3. 32 Ferry 1999, 150, 148. 33 Quoted by Ferry 1999, 148. 152
Treasury has been altered in some way or another. […]Palgrave also routinely altered punctuation, turning periods into dashes, commas, and semi- colons, often changing the meaning significantly. […] More serious is his routine capitalisation of abstract nouns such as “Love,” “Death,” and “Life” in order to give the personal expression of the poet a more universal significance in keeping with his editorial principle that the “purely personal” has no place in his anthology. 34 Palgrave’s tendency to alter punctuation and capitals, both adding and removing capital letters, can be seen in all of the Shakespeare sonnets selected. This can partly be attributed to modernisation, but Palgrave is especially prone to substituting full stops at the end of the fourth, eighth and twelfth lines, separating the quatrains more distinctly than the original 1609 punctuation. He arranges all the sonnets into three quatrains and a couplet making them appear more like lyrics. In Poem X, Sonnet 57 (‘Being your slave, what should I do but tend’), most of the 1609 commas at line ends are removed, parentheses are replaced with commas, and colons are replaced with full stops at the end of the first two quatrains. Perversely, a colon and dash replace the original full stop at the end of the third quatrain and mid-line commas added in lines 4 and 11. The capitalization of ‘Will’ in the penultimate line is removed, diminishing the pun on Shakespeare’s name and, Nelson suggests, directing the reader ‘away from an unhealthy, personal interpretation and to avoid a compromising footnote’.35 Poem VI ‘Crabbed Age and Youth…’ is realigned: each of the 10 lines in the 1599 Pilgrim version is halved to make 20 short lines, diminishing the balanced dichotomies of the original. In the songs, the common anthology practice of omitting interjecting speech lines and speech prefixes (in the case of part songs), edits out any relationship with the play. Poem VII ‘Under the greenwood tree’ omits the dialogue between Jaques and Amiens that interrupts the first two verses of the song. Also cut is the ensuing dialogue and Jaques’ third verse for the song.36 Poem XLV ‘Fear no more the heat o’ the sun’ is not presented as in Cymbeline as a ‘song’ spoken in parts; Palgrave omits lines 277 to 282 and lines 271 to 276 are set out as one verse, in the same way as verses 1 and 2. Poem VIII, ‘It was a lover and his lass’, does not follow the play text but instead follows the conventional rearrangement, first instituted by Johnson, that fits with Morley’s 1600 musical setting: the ‘chorus’ lines (lines 2, 4-6 in the first
34 Nelson, 140-142. 35 Ibid., 142. 36 To a lesser extent in Poem XXVI, ‘O mistress mine…’, the interjections by Sir Andrew and Sir Toby are omitted. 153 stanza) are omitted in the second and third verses. In poem XLIV, ‘Come away, come away, Death…’, the First Folio’s two six line stanzas become two eight-line stanzas. Nor is Palgrave is afraid to ‘improve’ by addition: Poem XXVII ‘Winter’ from Love’s Labour’s Lost follows Capell’s editing and ‘Tuwhoo!’ is added after the sixth line of each verse.37
The titles that Palgrave applied to most of the Shakespeare extracts are intrusive. He claimed to have ‘risked the addition (or the change) of a Title, that the aim of the verses following may be grasped more clearly and immediately’; 38 in other words, to direct the reader’s interpretation. Two poems are sometimes grouped under one title, for example Poems III and IV (Sonnets 64 and 65) which Palgrave numbers 1 and 2 and placed under the title ‘Time and Love’. In other instances it is less clear whether two poems share a title: Poems X and XI (Sonnets 57 and 97) appear to share the title ‘Absence’ though they are not numbered, and Poems XIII and XIV (Sonnets 109 and 104) apparently share the title ‘The Unchangeable’. Even if without a title, a preceding poem’s title can affect a reader’s interpretation of the subsequent poem. Poem XXXII (Sonnet 94, ‘They that have power to hurt’) has the rather odd title ‘The Life without Passion’ tailoring it to a sequence of poems concerning the parting of lovers. Elsewhere Feste’s song ‘O mistress mine’ becomes ‘Carpe Diem’ is grouped with the ensuing ‘Winter’ (‘When icicles hang by the wall’) and the following (untitled) Sonnet 73 (‘That time of year thou may’st in me behold’).39 Rumbold rightly suggests that these titles ‘promote Shakespeare’s timeless applicability’, although Palgrave does not give all the Shakespeare ‘poems’ titles and often his titles simply indicate subject or genre (‘Winter’, ‘A Madrigal’, ‘A Sea Dirge’, ‘Fidele’, ‘To His Love’). Titles, however, help convert Shakespeare’s sonnets and play extracts into lyrical poems and, incidentally, hetero-sexualise the sonnets.
Most of the poems in the first Book concern love. The poems are manipulated to reflect love between the (male) poet and his (female) beloved. Palgrave’s selection and ordering leads the reader through a narrative that explores various aspects of love. Beginning in an idealised pastoral world in springtime at
37 Added by Capell to balance the additional ‘Cuckoo’ in the same position in the preceding song ‘Spring’. 38 Treasury, Note to Poem CXCI, 321. 39 Poems XXVI – XXVII. 154 sunrise ‘when young lovers meet’ (Poems I and II) the poems take the reader on a journey through all aspects of loving relationships ending with the passing of love, parting, ageing, remembrance of past love, death and the death of the year, winter. The inclusion of his chosen and manipulated Shakespeare texts in such a sequence in an anthology of lyric poems and Palgrave’s ‘paste and scissors authorship,’ that removes all traces of the drama and gives no detail of source texts, creates a Shakespeare who endured in nineteenth- and twentieth-century anthologies: a lyric poet, overwhelmingly concerned with aspects of erotic or romantic love.
To accommodate Shakespeare, Book I of The Golden Treasury ends in 1616 rather than at the turn of a century as the subsequent Books do. The disproportionate amount of Shakespeare in the first Book suggests that Shakespeare was the most prolific and/or best lyric poet of his age and, as Rumbold observes, gave Shakespeare ‘a foundational role in the “natural growth and evolution of our Poetry”’.40
Nightingale Valley. A Collection, including a great number of the Choicest Lyrics and Short Poems in the English Language, 1860
Nightingale Valley is a largely forgotten anthology that influenced Palgrave. A collection of the ‘choicest’ English lyrics and short poems it was published in 1860, just months before The Golden Treasury. The anthologist ‘Giraldus’, the pseudonym of William Allingham, was a minor poet and anthologist mainly remembered for his poem ‘The Fairies’. Nightingale Valley contains two hundred and eleven lyrics or short poems from dead and living poets (including Allingham). The title of the second edition (1862), now attributed to Allingham, was changed to Nightingale Valley. A Collection of Choice Lyrics and Short poems from the time of Shakespeare to the Present Day, indicating its timespan, suggesting a chronological completeness and a foundational role for Shakespeare in the development of English poetry. A chronological list of the poets used at the back of the anthology reinforces this aspect.
40 Rumbold 2011, 98. 155
Allingham anticipated Palgrave’s approach to the work of the anthologist. He wrote,
a collection in any sense complete or exhaustive has not been thought of here, but an arrangement of a limited number of short poems, with some eye to grouping and general effect, and to the end (as said) of delight.41
He aimed ‘to present a jewel, aptly arranged of many stones, various in colour and value, but all precious’.42 Allingham’s title, inspired by the first poem in the book, Milton’s To The Nightingale and the ‘liquid notes’ of that bird’s song, reflected his belief that poetry was ‘the most melodious arrangement of language’ and ‘musical proportionality the life principle of poetry and the product of poetic beauty’.43
The publication of Nightingale Valley was a stimulus to Palgrave, who started compiling his anthology only in the late summer of 1860 and Nelson suggests that Palgrave was partly motivated by his jealousy of Allingham’s intimacy with Tennyson.44 Palgrave copied Allingham’s methodology. Nelson identifies another parallel in that Palgrave used about twenty-five per cent of Allingham’s selection overall, but when poems by living poets are discounted, the number of poems in common rises to one third. Why Palgrave’s copy-cat anthology was so successful and Allingham’s may have only seen perhaps two editions is unclear. The fanciful tone of Allingham’s title and Palgrave’s bolder claims to completeness may be factors.
Allingham includes thirteen Shakespeare texts: four sonnets and eight songs: ‘Hark! hark! the lark’; Ariel’s three songs; two songs from As You Like It, two fairy songs and Puck’s speech ‘Now the hungry lion roars’ which is occasionally performed as a song, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (see Appendix 19). Allingham’s presentation differs slightly from Palgrave’s. All the ‘poems’ have titles, but in the case of the four sonnets these are titled ‘SONNET’ with a descriptive sub-title in square brackets: ‘Absence’ for Sonnet 98, ‘Love’s Slave’ for Sonnet 57 , ‘Absence and Presence’ for Sonnet 52 and ‘Love’s Consolation’ for Sonnet 29 . Like Palgrave, Allingham edits out intervening dialogue to present songs
41 Allingham., v. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid., vi/vii. 44 Nelson, 104. 156 as self-contained lyrics but he links the songs with their source plays through his titles; for example, ‘Lord Amiens’ Song, in the Forest of Arden [From “As You Like It”]’. The selection from Shakespeare by the poet of ‘The Fairies’ appears heavily slanted towards ‘fairy’ poems with nearly half of the extracts from the Dream or Ariel’s songs from The Tempest - Ariel generally being regarded as a fairy by most nineteenth-century anthologists.45 The Shakespeare extracts are placed fairly evenly throughout the anthology and it is harder to discern an aesthetic pattern in Allingham’s arrangement than in Palgrave’s. For example, ‘Come unto these yellow sands’ is placed immediately after Shelley’s ‘Dirge for the Year’ and followed by Milton’s sonnet ‘On his blindness’ and his ‘Song on May Morning’. Despite the slight paratextual links with the drama, once again the Shakespeare created by this anthology is a poet who writes short poems or lyrics - with perhaps an interest in fairies.46
The Golden Pomp, 1895
At the end of the century, Quiller-Couch’s The Golden Pomp reflects The Golden Treasury’s influence and deals with Shakespeare extracts in the same way as Palgrave. 47 With only two editions, however, it did not emulate Palgrave’s success. An anthology of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century lyrics, The Golden Pomp overlaps the periods covered by Palgrave’s Books I and II. Quiller-Couch alludes to Palgrave’s title and adapts his definition of lyric: ‘a short poem –essentially melodious in rhythm and structure – treating summarily of a single thought, feeling or situation’.48 He selects ‘the best’ lyrics of the period,49 and adopts a similar symphonic arrangement to Palgrave; poems are grouped with each group running into the next to create a ‘garland’ and ‘a fairly continuous chain of thought […] woven from the beginning which treats of morning and youth and spring through
45 In Quiller-Couch’s Oxford Book of English Verse Ariel’s songs are coupled with two songs from Dream under an umbrella title ‘Fairy Land’ and Beeching’s Paradise of English Poetry puts them under ‘Fairy Songs’. 46 An earlier anthology also much concerned with Shakespeare as ‘Poet of the Fairies’ was Leigh Hunt’s Imagination and Fancy, 1844. Leigh Hunt found the ‘most poetical’ of Shakespeare’s poetry in the fairy scenes in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in the supernatural scenes in Macbeth and in The Tempest Act 1 scene 2. He printed long dramatic extracts from these plays to support his assertion that Shakespeare was ‘the greatest poet in the world’ (108). 47Arthur Quiller-Couch, The Golden Pomp (London: Methuen, 1895). Second edition 1905. 48 Ibid., vii. 49 Ibid., viii. 157 to Raleigh’s noble conclusion’.50 Thus his opening poem is Cymbeline’s ‘Hark! hark! the lark …’, and towards the end are poems about death, mourning and winter before the anthology closes with poems of religious hope and Raleigh’s ‘The Conclusion’. Quiller-Couch hoped that by this arrangement ‘each flower should do its best by its neighbours either by foil or by reflection of its colouring in thought and style’.51 His aim was ‘merely to please’, remarking that had his purpose been ‘scholastic’, he would have placed the poems chronologically by the poet’s date of birth (as he would shortly do in The Oxford Book of English Verse) to demonstrate a regular steady development from Surrey to Shirley.52 All the poems are attributed and at the back of the book are indices of first lines and of writers, but no provision for identifying the source in the case of extracts from plays.
The Golden Pomp draws heavily from Shakespeare with over fifty Shakespeare ‘poems’ among its three hundred and sixty-one items (see Appendix 19). Shakespeare has more ‘poems’ than any of the other sixty poets used and, apart from The Phoenix and the Turtle, all are songs from the plays (33) or sonnets (24). The poets next most represented are ‘Anon’ (42) and Herrick (40). There is considerable overlap in the Shakespeare extracts used by Quiller-Couch and Palgrave: twenty-six of the Treasury’s thirty-two Shakespeare texts are used in Pomp. Quiller-Couch also adopts some of Palgrave’s editing techniques: Sonnets 12 and 104 are linked under the title ‘Her Autumn’, again creating heterosexual love poems. Like Palgrave, Quiller-Couch created numerous Shakespeare ‘poems’ by presenting songs from plays as standalone poems and severing any connection with the source text. Thirty years after The Golden Treasury was first published The Golden Pomp reinforced the identity of Shakespeare as a prolific and important lyric poet of his age.
A Household Book of English Poetry, 1868
Archbishop Trench’s A Household Book of English Poetry was very successful with at least five editions by 1889. It sought the popular mass market, not ‘professed students of English Literature’, but,
50 Ibid. ix. 51 Ibid., ix. 52 Ibid., viii. 158
readers who, capable of an intelligent interest in the subject, have yet neither had the time or the opportunity for special studies of their own in it, and who must therefore rely more or less on the hand leading of others.53 The anthology was influenced by The Golden Treasury both in its organisation and in its reaction against the market leader: expressly not limited to one class of poetry it also included living writers. Trench claimed to have rescued some poems from ‘complete oblivion’ and to have chosen only sixty poems also used by Palgrave. Although the anthology has five chronological ‘Parts’, Trench did not organise by poet or strictly chronologically and his thematic arrangement emulated Palgrave’s approach. Trench ‘of necessity’ excluded dramatic poetry and complained that ‘there is nothing of Shakespeare’s to choose from but his Sonnets and his Songs’.54 He limited himself to six Shakespeare poems: Sonnets 30, 98 and 54, all titled ‘Sonnet’, and placed together within a larger group of sonnets; Sonnets 146 and 129 again titled ‘Sonnet’ were placed together and ‘Fear no more the heat o’ th’ sun’ was presented as a four verse lyric titled ‘Dirge’.55 Once again in a commercially successful anthology, Shakespeare the lyric poet was put forward.
III Early nineteenth-century anthologies
The creation of Shakespeare by nineteenth-century anthologists as a lyric poet within the tradition of English poetry had, however, started before the work of Palgrave, Allingham and Trench.
The amount of Shakespeare used and the anthologist’s estimation of him varies widely in collections published at the end of the eighteenth century or in the early 1800s. Two comprehensive multiple-volume anthologies containing all of Shakespeare’s poems were Anderson’s A Complete Edition of the Poets of Great
53 Richard Chenevix Trench, A Household Book of English Poetry (London: Macmillan & Co., 1868), vii, xi. 54 Ibid., x. 55 The anthology also uses ‘Bridal Song’ (‘Roses their sharp spines…’) from The Two Noble Kinsmen, attributed to Beaumont and Fletcher. 159
Britain and Chalmers’ The Works of the English Poets from Chaucer to Cowper.56 Chalmers also included a number of songs from the plays as poems. To Anderson Shakespeare was an ‘astonishing genius’ who was ‘to advance original poetry almost to perfection’ but, he warned, Shakespeare should be judged against the standards of his age rather than ‘more modern and polished productions’. He noted that his disposition was more inclined to dramatic than narrative poetry: his dramatic genius being ‘a gift from heaven’ whereas his ability for narrative verse was ‘of a splendid and transcendent kind, approaching nearer those of other mortals’.57 Other multiple- volume anthologies used Shakespeare less generously. Ritson’s The English Anthology, which offered a selection of English poetry from all poets of ‘any eminence’ in a ‘chronological series from Chaucer to the present day’, was heavily weighted towards later material and contains only Shakespeare’s Sonnet 20;58 Campbell’s Specimens of the British Poets used only four Shakespeare sonnets (Nos. 2, 54, 116, and 145).59An illustrated anthology The Book of Gems. The Poets and Artists of Great Britain (1836) was a successful publication with several further editions in the mid-nineteenth century. It aimed ‘to extend the knowledge and appreciation of British poetry and British Art’ and ‘to collect and arrange in a popular and attractive form the most perfect specimens of the poets’.60 The poems are arranged chronologically, poet by poet, with each poet’s texts preceded by a biographical headnote. Shakespeare is in Volume 1 which covers Chaucer to Prior. He is represented by an engraving ‘Shakespeare in his room at Stratford’ from the painting by J. Boaden and by twenty-four of his sonnets. All the titles of these multiple-volume anthologies suggest a desire to construct a national poetry canon in which Shakespeare plays a greater or lesser part.
Single-volume anthologies also contributed to the creation of Shakespeare the lyric poet. Specimens of the Early English Poets (1790) used a generous number of Shakespeare’s ‘lyric poems’. The poems are arranged in sections under the monarch in whose reign the poets ‘flourished’ in the hope that this would ‘unite the advantages of a poetical common-place book with those of a history of English
56 Robert Anderson, A Complete Edition of the Poets of Great Britain, 14 vols. (London: J & A Arch, 1793-5); Alexander Chalmers, The Works of the English Poets from Chaucer to Cowper, 21 vols. (London: J. Johnson, 1810). 57 Anderson, 607, 610. 58 Joseph Ritson, The English Anthology, 3 vols. (London: T. & J. Egerton, 1793-4), 59 Thomas Campbell, Specimens of the British Poets, 7 vols. (London: John Murray, 1819). 60 Samuel Carter Hall, The Book of Gems…, 3 vols. (London: Saunders & Otley, 1836), vii. 160 poetry’.61 Shakespeare falls into the ‘Queen Elizabeth’ section and is represented by eleven songs from plays, Sonnet 57, Dumaine’s ‘sonnet’ and two poems from The Passionate Pilgrim (see Appendix 20). Where songs are taken from plays there is no reference to the source. All the extracts have titles and look like separate poems complete in themselves.
The Beauties of the British Poets (1828) aimed to give ‘a selection of our eminent writers as may best exhibit their styles of thought and language’. It is weighted towards eighteenth- and nineteenth-century poems; the only earlier poets included being Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton.62 There are eight extracts from Shakespeare plays, none of them songs, all presented with titles as if poems (see Appendix 21). The anthologist reveals a didactic aim, claiming to have persevered in his task ‘from the feeling that the writings of the great poets of England cannot be put into the popular hand too often, in too pleasing a form, or under too accessible circumstances’.63 The anthology proceeds, poet by poet, in chronological order. There are brief prefatory notes on Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Keats and Byron, situating them in the development of English poetry. ‘Panegyric sinks before the name of Shakespeare’ and the anthologist presented him as an effortless Romantic lyric poet:
[Shakespeare] gives us the idea that he had either felt and registered every emotion of our being […]. He is, above all poets, the poet of passion […]. His force and flow have the easy strength of the tide and his lights and shadows are thrown with the rich negligence, yet with the intensified grandeur of the colours of heaven on the ocean.64
IV
Mid-century anthologies
I consider next the Shakespeare created by some significant mid-nineteenth- century multiple-poet anthologies.
61 George Ellis, Specimens of the Early English Poets (London, 1790), i. 62 George Croly, The Beauties of the British Poets (London: R.B. Seely and W. Burnside, 1828), xiv. 63 Ibid. xv. 64 Ibid. viii. 161
A Thousand and One Gems of English Poetry, 1867
A Thousand and One Gems of English Poetry was an influential creator of Shakespeare: it contained many Shakespeare extracts, sold in large quantities, over a long period and reached a large readership. The anthology first appeared in 1867 and the title-page in an edition dated 1897 describes itself as ‘the 23rd edition’. The mass market was clearly in the publisher’s sights; they aimed ‘to present some great panoramic view of the masterpieces of English poetry […] in a form, and at a price which would recommend it to the taste of the rich, without placing it beyond the means of the poor’.65
A Thousand and One Gems contains an unusually large number of Shakespeare extracts (132). The majority are from the plays and include most of the famous speeches. There are also sonnets and extracts from Lucrece and Venus and Adonis creating short lyric poems from the narrative poems (see Appendix 22).The anthology follows a chronological path through English poetry: poems are grouped by poet and poets arranged roughly in birthdate order. All the poems have capitalised titles and each poet’s ‘section’ of the anthology is headed with the poet’s name and dates. Play extracts are mainly grouped by play, and usually presented as standalone poems, although occasionally speech prefixes are retained. Interjecting lines are omitted to create a seamless ‘poem’ as in ‘Mark Antony’s Oration Over the Body of Caesar’, and in ‘Coriolanus’s Contempt for the Mob’ lines from two scenes are juxtaposed to create the ‘poem’. Titles mostly describe the poem’s subject-matter, like ‘Music’, ‘Fortune’ and ‘England’, but some partly connect with the drama, as in ‘Lady Percy’s Speech to her Husband’. Although the source play is named under the title to the first extract from each play, what the reader sees on the pages of the anthology are poems.
Gleanings from the English Poets, Chaucer to Tennyson, 1862
Robert Inglis’ Gleanings from the English Poets, Chaucer to Tennyson (1862) also sold well, with two editions in 1862 and at least another two by 1881. The anthology is organised chronologically by poet. Two hundred and three English
65 Charles Mackay, A Thousand and One Gems of English Poetry (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1867), iii. 162 poets are represented, from Chaucer and Thomas the Rhymer to Felicia Hemans, Tennyson and other nineteenth-century poets who no longer trouble anthologists, like The Hon. Mrs Norton and the Rev. Horatius Bonar Bryan. A biographical and bibliographical headnote for each poet is provided. Shakespeare’s headnote describes him as ‘the greatest poet England has produced’and regarded as such ‘even in his day’. Nevertheless he takes his place chronologically alongside his peers and is, perhaps, under-represented by twelve extracts, considering that an equal number are taken from Cowper and Bryon and twenty-two from Milton. The Shakespeare extracts are from speeches in ten of his plays (see Appendix 23). Once again they are printed as short poems. Titles are provided and the source play is noted at the foot of each extract but beyond this nothing indicates that these are the words of a character in a play. Most of the extracts comprise a complete speech, or its rhetorical core, that is, without the lines at the beginning or end connecting it to the dramatic action. Usually there are no speech prefixes or stage directions.66 Cuts are not indicated: ‘Othello relates his courtship to the Senate’, for example, runs two speeches together omitting interjections to create one poem. Titles given to the extracts vary. They may sum up the subject-matter of the ‘poem’: ‘Mercy’ for Portia’s courtroom speech, ‘Life and Death’ for Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’., and others like ‘Murder of King Duncan’ suggest what is happening in the dramatic monologue poem the anthologist has created. This anthology creates a Shakespeare who is a slightly less ‘lyrical’ poet and closer to a writer of dramatic monologues like Browning.
Chambers Cyclopedia of English Literature, 1843-4
Not every nineteenth-century multiple-poet anthology treated extracts from Shakespeare’s plays as short lyric poems, although my research indicates that the vast majority did so. A significant exception was Chambers Cyclopedia of English Literature (1843-4) which was part encyclopaedia/guide to English literature and part anthology:67
a systematised series of extracts from our national authors […] a “concentration” […] of the best productions of English intellect, from Anglo-
66 Exceptions presented as dramatic extracts with speech prefixes and stage directions are ‘The Murder of King Duncan’ from Macbeth and ‘Love Scene’ (part of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet). 67 Robert Chambers, Chambers Cyclopedia of English Literature, 2 vols. (London; Edinburgh: Chambers, 1843-4). 163
Saxon to the present times […] set in a biographical and critical history of the literature itself’.68 The bibliographical history of this anthology is unclear, but with numerous editions throughout the century it must have reached a large readership. According to the preface in the 1858 edition, it was first published in two volumes in 1843-4 and enjoyed ‘a most successful career’ both in the home market and in America. It was an enduring title; in addition to the editions of 1843-4 and 1858, I have traced editions from 1854, 1879, 1883, 1889, 1892 and new editions ‘by David Patrick’ in 1902 and 1903.
The preface reveals that the anthology was targeted at the mass-market and had an educational aim founded on a political desire to create national cohesion through a shared literary culture during the 1840s - a period of considerable social and political unrest:
This work originated in a desire […] to supply […] a deficiency in the literature addressed at the present time to the great body of the people. In the late efforts for the improvement of the popular mind, the removal of mere ignorance has been the chief object held in view: attention has mainly been given to what might be expected to impart technical knowledge […] we were anxious to take the aid of the press […] to bring the belles-lettres into the list of those agencies which are now operating for the mental advancement of the middle and humbler portions of society. Nor is it to be overlooked, how important an end is to be attained by training the entire people to venerate the thoughtful and eloquent of past and present times.[…] A regard for our national authors enters into and forms part of the most sacred feeling of every educated man […] Assuredly, in our common reverence for a Shakespeare, a Milton, a Scott, we have a social and uniting sentiment which not only contains in itself part of our happiness as a people but much that counteracts influences that tend to set us in division. 69 It also hoped the book would be used by young people and ‘introduce the young to the Pantheon of English Authors’.70
This anthology placed Shakespeare in a long procession of English literature but, unusually, treated him separately as poet and as dramatist. It is organised into periods, characterised by the reigning monarchs, and within these divisions the compiler methodically divided the text into sections devoted to ‘Poets’, Scottish Poets’, ‘Dramatists’ and ‘Prose Writers’ and dealt with them in birthdate order.
68 Preface to the 1858 edition. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid. 164
Introductory biographical and bibliographical notes are provided for each writer. Extracts from Shakespeare feature in both the ‘Poets’ and the ‘Dramatists’ sections of ‘The Third Period. The reigns of Elizabeth, James I and Charles I [1558-1649]’.
As a dramatist Shakespeare is set among his peers, the notes expressing the notion that preceding dramatists (Marlowe, Peele and Greene) set the scene for the arrival of a pre-eminent Shakespeare, whose career as a dramatist is seen as a ‘gradual progress’:
When Shakespeare therefore appeared on the horizon the scene may be said to have been prepared for his reception. The Genius of the Drama had accumulated materials for the use of the great poet, who was to extend his empire over limits not yet recognised and invest it with a splendour which the world had never seen before.71
Incidentally, Shakespeare is here described in the kind of language often used to eulogise the British Empire.
All the extracts from Shakespeare are listed in Appendix 24. Of the nineteen extracts from his plays, seven are presented as dramatic excerpts with speech prefixes and stage directions and the remainder are presented as poems. All have titles, some neutral like ‘Mercy’ or ‘Description of Night in a Camp’ while others refer to the play like ‘Ghost scene in Hamlet’ (sic) and ‘Falstaff arrested by his Hostess, Dame Quickly’. Most, but not all, indicate the source play, but no act, scene and line references are provided. ‘Shakespeare the Poet’ extracts include passages from Venus and Adonis, a number of the Sonnets, although their numbers are not indicated and five songs from the plays when the play is indicated. The notes on Shakespeare the poet are more restrained compared with those about him as dramatist - in this field he had an equal in Spenser:
Shakespeare as a writer of miscellaneous poetry, claims now to be noticed and with the exception of the Faery Queen there are not poems of the reign of Elizabeth equal to those productions to which the great dramatist affixed his name.72 The Cyclopedia attempts to position Shakespeare within his age and within the whole field of English literature. It does this in a measured way falling well short of idolatry: he is a genius but his plays are not without faults and as a poet he stands
71 Cyclopedia , 167. 72 Ibid, 197. 165 shoulder to shoulder with Spenser. The anthologist placed a greater emphasis on Shakespeare the dramatist than other contemporary anthologists as a result of the book’s dual nature (anthology/literary encyclopaedia) and its critical and biographical commentary, but even so the bulk of the extracts appear as short poems. This presentation and lack of detailed information regarding the source texts suggests that, in Shakespeare’s case, the anthologist believed that the aim of creating ‘a common reverence for a Shakespeare, a Milton, a Scott’ could be achieved by serving up standalone excerpts. That the public wanted and consumed Shakespeare in this form is demonstrated by the Cyclopedia’s market success.
V Anthologies from the end of the century
Multiple-poet anthologies from the end of the nineteenth century demonstrate that the anthologists’ habit of making Shakespeare into a lyric poet and situating him within a chronology of English poetry continued throughout the century.
A Paradise of English Poetry, 1893
The title-page of A Paradise of English Poetry, describes it as ‘arranged by H.C. Beeching’, who, like Palgrave, thought of himself as a creative arranger.73 A commercial success, the anthology was first published in 1893 and at least four further editions followed: one undated and others in 1896, 1898 and 1902. Whereas Palgrave arranged his anthology to be read in an uninterrupted linear way, Beeching organised thematically under ‘Love’, ‘Home Affections and Friendship’, ‘Man’, ‘Patriotism’, ‘Art’, ‘Romance’, ‘Nature’, ‘Pastorals’ and ‘Death and Religion’. Brief textual, bibliographical, critical notes and indices are provided. The paratexts offer little clue as to the intended readership but the preface reveals something of Beeching’s approach. His title harks back to the old metaphor of the anthology as a heavenly or paradise garden and Beeching’s is a ‘garden of the dead’, with nothing from living poets. This he turned to an advantage; it allowed more space ‘for the older poets who are probably less familiar’. Beeching omitted sonnets because ‘they do not mix well with lyric and dramatic poetry’.74 There are almost five hundred
73 Henry Charles Beeching, A Paradise of English Poetry, 2 vol. (London: Percival & Co., 1893). 74 Ibid., ix. 166 poems from around one hundred poets, the most frequently used being Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Donne and Herbert. Dramatic extracts are confined to early modern dramatists, mainly Shakespeare. Beeching wrote:
The selections from the drama are such as express general truths, and do not depend for their comprehension or force upon particular characters or circumstances. Great care has been bestowed to secure an accurate text; but the Editor has not hesitated to omit lines and stanzas that for any reason seem best omitted. In important cases such omissions are pointed out in the notes.75 Thus he allowed himself wide editorial scope to detach extracts completely from the plays and treat them as poems important for their ‘wisdom’ or expression of ‘general truths’.
Beeching included thirty-six extracts from Shakespeare, and used a further nine as his section epigraphs. All are from plays save one extract from Lucrece (see Appendix 25). He used both songs and speeches. Most extracts appear as poems with generic titles like ‘Song’, ‘Fairy Songs’ and ‘A Masque’ or titles which connect them to the subject-matter of the section in which they are placed.76 Two exceptions are presented as dramatic extracts: the masque from The Tempest (5.1.60-138) and the sheep-shearing scene from The Winter’s Tale (4.4.73-155). Elsewhere Beeching manipulates with a free hand. Extracts from The Winter’s Tale, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It are printed together as if two ‘poems’ under the titles ‘Childish Friendship I’ and ‘II’.77 The epigraph to ‘Patriotism’ juxtaposes two fragments from John of Gaunt’s ‘This sceptr’d isle’ speech ( R2 2.1. 40 -50 and 61 - 63) to create a new poem about England. An extract from Julius Caesar (‘Cowards die many times before their death…’) is placed with lines from Measure for Measure (‘Ay, but to die and go we know not where …’) and, separated only by a single mid- line asterisk, creates a new poem ‘Fear of Death’. Under one title, ‘The Power of Music’, Beeching placed separate ‘poems’ ‘Orpheus with his lute made trees…’, (here attributed to Fletcher), part of Lorenzo’s speech from The Merchant of Venice (‘How sweet the moonlight sleeps…’), passages from Milton’s Comus and a lyric by Cowley. All the Shakespeare extracts are attributed but the source plays are not indicated in the main part of the anthology, although some source details can be
75 Ibid., x. 76 In a few instances the extracts are printed with speech prefixes (details in Appendix 26). 77 The passages are I. WT 1.2.63-65 and II. MND 3.2.199-215; AYL 1.3.71-75. 167 found in the notes at the end of the book, and the extracts look like discrete poems,. A Paradise of English Poetry again represented Shakespeare with extracts from his plays manipulated into poems and created a lyric poet Shakespeare offering ‘wisdom’ or thoughts on a variety of subjects.
The Shakespeare Anthology, 1899
The Shakespeare Anthology was the fourth in a chronological series of ten ‘British Anthologies’ spanning the years 1401 to 1800 compiled by Edward Arber.78 It was first published in 1899 and re-issued in 1901. An advertisement on the endpapers of the book indicates that the series considered itself ‘the first adequate attempt that has ever been made towards an historical national Anthology at popular prices’. Squarely aimed at the mass market, the volumes of the ‘national Anthology’, each ‘complete in itself’ and available separately, made the anthology more affordable. The advertisement emphasised value for money and comprehensiveness: ‘the series will contain about 2,500 entire Poems and Songs, by some Three Hundred Poets’ and ‘nearly every form of English Versification will be represented’. It asserted that there was a national body of literature and the anthology offered all ‘those Poems and Songs with which everyone ought to be acquainted’; the word ‘ought’ hinting at a patriotic duty to know these texts.
Each volume in the series represented ‘a definite period in our literary history’. The titles used the name of a writer prominent in the period it covered.79 The Shakespeare Anthology covers the years, 1592 - 1616, from the time when Shakespeare is thought to have begun his writing career up until his death. It has 312 pages of poems from forty-seven poets. An alphabetical list of the poets with relevant page references is provided at the front and, at the back, is a glossary of archaic words and an index of first lines with details of author and source text. Each poet’s texts are grouped together and attributed by means of a running header on every page. Shakespeare extracts cover seventeen pages, but he is not disproportionately represented; more pages are devoted to Campion (22) and a fair number to Raleigh (14), John Davies (11), Breton (10), Drayton (9) and Jonson (8). The poets are not organised by birthdate, but Shakespeare is given priority by being
78 Edward Arber, The Shakespeare Anthology 1592-1616 A.D. (London: Henry Froude, 1899). 79 The other titles mention Dunbar, The Surrey & Wyatt, Spenser, Jonson, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Goldsmith and Cowper. 168 named in the title and by being placed first in the book. The Shakespeare extracts (see Appendix 26) have no titles and are separated by short horizontal lines. Extracts from plays resemble poems,80and source information is only to be found in the index of first lines at the end of the book.
Arber’s anthology is significant because as a professional literary scholar he determined the Shakespeare ‘with which everyone ought to be acquainted’ or the essential Shakespeare.81 In the ‘British Anthologies’ series he assembled a national poetry canon just as Quiller-Couch would do in his Oxford Book of English Verse. Apart from ‘The Three Caskets’ from The Merchant of Venice, Arber’s selection from Shakespeare is limited to nineteen songs from plays and six sonnets. The songs are those repeatedly used by anthologists, with only Ophelia’s ‘How should I your true love know’ and Autolycus’ ‘Jog on’ being less predictable. ‘The Three Caskets’ cuts and pastes the inscriptions on the caskets at Belmont and the words on the three scrolls within them, blending material from three scenes to create three poems under an umbrella title. The sequence makes little sense if the play is not familiar, but Arber apparently assumed that readers would have this contextual knowledge.
Arber excluded dramatic verse and strictly applied the (self-imposed) editorial rubric alluded to in the advertisement of selecting ‘entire Poems and Songs’. Thus he only considered Shakespeare’s sonnets and self-contained ‘poems’ from plays, like songs and the scroll verses, as appropriate for the anthology. Whether or not Arber genuinely believed his selection from Shakespeare actually comprised those bits of Shakespeare everyone ought to know, that is what his anthology asserted. The Shakespeare he created was again a lyric poet.
V
80 An exception is ‘Fear no more the heat o’ the’ sun’ where all the speech prefixes of the play text are preserved. 81 Arber lectured in English at University College, London (1878-1881), was Professor of English at Mason College, Birmingham (1881-1894), and from 1894 Emeritus Professor and Fellow at King’s College, London.
169
Anthologies for Children
Children were increasingly targeted as consumers of literature and Shakespeare in the nineteenth century, with books like Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare and Mary Cowden Clarke’s The Girlhood of Shakespeare’s Heroines, and in children’s magazines Shakespeare featured as an inspiring subject.82 Anthologies also entered this market. I examine two typical examples aimed at younger readers that use ‘famous’ and ‘familiar’ extracts to create the lyric poet Shakespeare.
Poets’ Corner, 1868
Poets’ Corner. A Manual for Students in English Poetry with Biographical Sketches of the Authors (1868, reissued 1884) was intended as a classroom text book but the preface suggests a wider market was hoped for.83 This anthology claimed that, despite the superabundant supply of ‘Selections’, ‘Gems’ and ‘Specimens’ of poetry, it met a unique need for,
a portable volume, which gives the Student a fair knowledge of the style of our great poets, which supplies him with the most famous or familiar passages of their works, and, at the same time, prepares his mind for the Poetry by first of all (through the aid of a Biography) introducing him to the poet.84 The anthologist, J.C.M. Bellew, excluded minor poets and those ‘too licentious’ for his young readership and featured ‘those whose names are familiar to English ears, and of whose works a youth receiving a polite education would be expected to have some knowledge’.85 While aiming at young readers Bellew hoped to have produced ‘a book that would likewise prove acceptable to persons of mature years, and be companionable at any period of life.’86
Extracts are grouped by poet and preceded with a headnote that mixed biographical and bibliographical information with criticism, although in
82 Kathryn Prince, Shakespeare in the Victorian Periodicals (London; New York: Routledge, 2008), 37-61. 83 J.C.M. Bellew, Poets’ Corner. A Manual for Students in English Poetry with Biographical Sketches of the Authors (London: George Routledge, 1868), vii. 84 Ibid., iii. 85 Ibid., vii. 86 Ibid., vii. 170
Shakespeare’s case, ‘any criticism of his writing is unnecessary’ since he is ‘the greatest genius that the world has ever known’; Bellew’s Shakespeare selection does not necessarily match his assertion. He proceeded chronologically by poets’ birthdates beginning with Chaucer so Shakespeare is sandwiched between Drayton and Wotton. Bellew chose songs from six plays, six sonnets and three poems from The Passionate Pilgrim (see Appendix 27). The choice of songs is unexceptional. They are linked to their play with headings like ‘From “Two Gentlemen of Verona” and then ‘Song’. Additional information is provided for ‘Tell me where is fancy bred?’ with the phrase ‘Whilst BASSANIO comments on the caskets’. The sonnets all printed under an umbrella heading ‘Sonnets’ are given their original (1609) numbers. Extracts from The Passionate Pilgrim are headed ‘From “The Passionate Pilgrim”’. For an anthologist planning to select ‘the most famous or familiar passages’, Bellew chose eccentrically. He boasted in the headnote to Shakespeare that the anthology had ‘few’ quotations from Shakespeare and did not contain ‘a single passage from any of his plays’;87 a comment revealing that he considered the songs to exist independently as poems. Bellew assumed, with a generous (and misguided) faith in English schoolboys, that his readers would possess a Complete Works and have read it:
The student or class-boy who uses this manual will take it in hand to study the language and style of those poets who are not familiar to him, and whose words he could not easily possess, whereas the plays of Shakespere should be in possession of, and be read by, every such youth, who owning and comprising the complete works will not care to look here for “gems” and scraps of quotations88. Presumably feeling obliged to include some Shakespeare, Bellew chose a few songs and sonnets to create (notwithstanding the references to the source plays) a Shakespeare who is a lyric poet.
87 Ibid.,169. 88 Ibid.,169/170. 171
The Children’s Treasury of Lyrical Poetry, 1875
Palgrave’s The Children’s Treasury of Lyrical Poetry (1875) was intended for a young person’s leisure reading and as a classroom anthology: ‘meant for their own possession and study, not less than a class book in the teacher’s hand’.89 Palgrave here followed a template set by Coventry Patmore’s very successful anthology The Children’s Garland published in 1861, reprinted numerous times during the century, and which included a similar but slightly larger selection of Shakespeare’s ‘poems’ (see Appendix 28). Patmore aimed ‘to please’ children,90 whereas Palgrave’s preface suggests that, as well as poetry for poetry’s sake, he also had a subsidiary aim of bringing the nation’s literature to its young people, and by providing examples of its literary heritage, encourage patriotism and promote the proper conduct of their lives, material and spiritual:
The editor’s wish has been to collect all songs, narratives, descriptions or reflective pieces of a lyrical quality, fit to give pleasure – high, pure, manly, (and therefore lasting) – to children in the stage between early childhood and early youth: and no pieces which are not of this character. Poetry for Poetry’s sake is what he offers. To illustrate the history of our literature, to furnish specimens of leading or of less known poets, to give useful lessons for this or the other life, to encourage a patriotic temper – each an aim fit to form the guiding principle of a selection – here have only an indirect and subsidiary recognition.91 This anthology, also reprinted numerous times in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, found a wide readership. Divided into two ‘parts’, a limited number of songs from Shakespeare’s plays are found in each (see Appendix 28). Occasionally poems are grouped thematically. For example ‘A Sea Dirge’ (‘Full fathom five’) is preceded by a number of poems relating to the loss of ships and lives at sea and is followed by ‘A Land Dirge’ – Webster’s ‘Call for the robin redbreast and the wren’. ‘The Fairy Life’ couples two of Ariel’s songs from The Tempest (‘Where the bee sucks’ and ‘Come unto these yellow sands’) as if one poem and is followed by Allingham’s The Fairies. ‘You spotted snakes with double tongue’ is titled ‘Lullaby for Titania’ and placed with poems about fairies. As in Palgrave’s Golden Treasury songs from the plays became short lyric poems and created a Shakespeare who is a lyric poet.
89 F.T. Palgrave, The Children’s Treasury of Lyrical Poetry (London: Macmillan, 1875), v. 90 Coventry Patmore, The Children’s Garland from the Best Poets (London: Macmillan, 1892). vi. 91 Ibid., v/vi. 172
VII
The representative cross-section of multiple-poet anthologies I have considered, were mostly commercially very successful, reaching a large readership and were, therefore, influential in creating a general perception of what Shakespeare was. They vary in methodology but their content overlaps to a considerable degree and their paratexts reveal common aims.
The desire to appeal to a wide socio-economic range of readers, both altruistic and commercially shrewd, was often imbued with an unselfconscious pedagogical and paternalistic condescension to bring poetry (including Shakespeare) to the masses. This is evident in Palgrave’s hope of providing a source of delight ‘to Labour and Poverty’. Arber offered poems ‘everyone’ ought to be acquainted with at ‘popular’ prices. Trench was aware of a wide readership and offered notes for those readers who are ‘capable of an intelligent interest in the subject, have yet neither had the time or the opportunity for special studies of their own in it, and who must therefore rely on the hand-leading of others’.92 This educational aim is most fully expressed in the paratextual material in Chambers Cyclopedia which aimed to bring ‘the belles-lettres into the list of those agencies which are now operating for the mental advancement of the middle and humbler portions of society.’ Anthologists also saw themselves contributing to the establishment of a national canon of poetry. Including Shakespeare in their multiple-poet collections anthologists placed him within this canon, often emphasising his significance in their paratextual claims for him, or by including numerous Shakespeare extracts and/or using his name in their main and sectional titles. Often apparent too was a notion that admiration for the best of the nation’s poets, shared among a wide array of readers, could bind society together and encourage patriotism. This was particularly marked in the prefaces to Chambers’ Cyclopedia and The Children’s Treasury. Some anthologists believed that moral lessons could be derived from their selections: Palgrave hoped his children’s anthology would provide ‘useful lessons for this or the other life’ and Beeching noted the ‘general truths’ to be found in Shakespeare’s plays. These ideas were shared in the exclusively Shakespeare anthologies I consider below.
92 Trench, xi. 173
In 1799 Hannah More thought that obtaining learning and quotations from anthologies was tantamount to lying because of the temptation to pretend to have acquired these by reading entire works.93 Many nineteenth-century anthologists believed they provided a useful service by delivering the ‘best’ or the ‘essential’ English poetry in one convenient place, and saving their readers time and effort and, through their individual and sectional titles, guiding interpretation. The Shakespeare extracts repeatedly presented in their anthologies became established as the essential fragments that everyone ought to know.
Natalie Houston argues for greater consideration of the publishing practices shaping readers’ encounters with poetry: the content, organisation, design and intent of the numerous poetry anthologies published throughout the [Victorian] period.94 Consideration of these elements is important when seeking the Shakespeare created by nineteenth-century multiple-poet anthologies. Readers of the anthologies did not necessarily read methodically through the book: many would ignore prefaces and notes and would not regard an anthology as a springboard for further reading, preferring to obtain all they needed to know in one place, and many readers would not have been familiar with Shakespeare’s texts. The prominence many general anthologies gave Shakespeare through the quantity of extracts used and/or references to him in titles and paratexts indicated to the nineteenth-century anthology readers his importance as a poet. The Shakespeare texts the anthologists used were mainly taken from his plays but were almost invariably manipulated into ‘poems’. There was a marked reluctance, on the part of many anthologists, to print extracts as dramatic extracts or to use anything from Shakespeare’s plays not readily severable, as a standalone ‘poem’. Thus The Golden Treasury, The Golden Pomp, Nightingale Valley, The Children’s Treasury, and Poets’ Corner only printed his songs or sonnets. When anthologists did include extracts from the plays they were usually presented as short poems, and information linking these ‘poems’ and their source plays was generally sketchy and often non-existent. This textual manipulation and the repeated use of these extracts in books that were collections of poems told readers that Shakespeare was a poet rather than a dramatist. The cumulative effect of numerous nineteenth-century poetry anthologies using sonnets and songs or speeches
93 Hannah More, Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education, 2 vols. (London, 1799), vol. 1, 160-162. 94 Houston, 363. 174 detached from Shakespeare’s plays and offered to readers as poems created a ‘Shakespeare’ who was not a dramatist but a poet, and, moreover, a poet who wrote short poems or songs.
VIII Nineteenth-century Shakespeare Anthologies
In Poets’ Corner Bellew acknowledged the ‘superabundant supply of “Selections”, “Gems” and “Specimens” of Poetry’ but hoped readers would eschew collections of Shakespearean gems in favour of the Complete Works.95 Many editions of Shakespeare’s works were published in the century and while, for the reasons previously outlined, the number of anthologies of Shakespearean extracts circulating is impossible to ascertain, the numerous Shakespeare anthologies published indicate that many readers acquired Shakespeare in textual fragments. Nineteenth-century Shakespeare anthologies varied: there were collections of poems reinforcing the creation of Shakespeare the lyric poet, assemblages of famous and familiar passages, and gatherings of proverbs or maxims. Demonstrating Shakespeare’s genius as a moral philosopher was the aim of some anthologists, one determined to prove that Shakespeare was a loyal Anglican and not a papist. Whatever their aims, most anthologists shared the belief that whatever the topic Shakespeare had the last word on it. I will consider significant representative examples of each category of Shakespeare anthology.
Songs and Sonnets by William Shakespeare
Palgrave’s Songs and Sonnets by William Shakespeare was a popular mid- century anthology that assembled the extracts from Shakespeare found in many nineteenth-century multiple-poet anthologies and reinforced Palgrave’s creation of Shakespeare the lyric poet.96 First published in 1865 the anthology sold well and I have traced at least three further editions (1879, 1887,1891).
95 Poets’ Corner, iii. 96 F.T. Palgrave, Songs and Sonnets by William Shakespeare (London: Macmillan, 1865). 175
Palgrave aimed ‘to bring the purely lyrical work of Shakespeare and the lyrical only, within one portable volume’.97 He continued to manipulate Shakespeare’s texts as he had in The Golden Treasury. His anthology assembled songs from Shakespeare’s plays, most of the Sonnets, A Lover’s Complaint, The Phoenix and the Turtle and poems from The Passionate Pilgrim (see Appendix 29). Sonnets 153 and 154 are omitted because they are ‘closely connected with the subject’ of Venus and Adonis and ‘marked like it, by a warmth of colouring unsuitable for the larger audience’. The narrative poems are left out because ‘lyrical- narrative’ rather than ‘lyrical pure’. Palgrave expanded the canon of Shakespeare’s lyric poetry by including far more songs from plays than other anthologists, rejecting only ‘songs too closely involved in the action of the play for intelligible separation from it, and some of doubtful authorship’.98
The anthology is organised into three sections: ‘Songs’, ‘Sonnets’ and ‘A Lover’s Complaint’. Source plays are not indicated. The faintest hint at Shakespeare the dramatist is concealed in notes at the end of the book in a sub-heading ‘Songs from the Plays’. As in The Golden Treasury, Palgrave mediates the extracts for readers by giving each poem a title further isolating them from their play. Sometimes he re-uses ‘established’ titles from The Golden Treasury and The Children’s Treasury, examples being ‘A Sea Dirge’ for ‘Full fathom five’ and ‘The Fairy Life’ for Ariel’s other songs. Palgrave’s postface suggests he is now less confident about this, perhaps because he was dealing exclusively with Shakespeare, ‘whose greatness is so conspicuous and imperial’:
Pleasure is the object of poetry; and fulfilment of its task is the greatest pleasure of the greatest number. But pleasure demands intelligibility; and in the hope of adding it, titles have been added to the poems. The editor […] has tried to make his titles explanatory to the lovers of poetry either by way of a hint or of more direct statement; he submits this intrusion upon Shakespeare to their good nature.99 These remarks also indicate that achieving a wide readership (‘the greatest number’) was an aim.
Most of the songs are presented as discrete lyric poems within thematic groupings. ‘Fairy’ poems from the Dream and The Tempest follow one another, as
97 Ibid., 236. 98 Ibid. 99 Ibid. 237. 176 do ‘dirges’ from Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado and Autolycus’ songs; three instances where extracts are collected under one title, ‘The Fairy Life’, ‘Dirges’ and ‘Pedlar’s Cries’ respectively. Otherwise Palgrave makes each song a discrete unit. Dialogue interrupting songs is omitted to make a flowing lyric as in Ophelia’s ‘How should I your true love know’, here titled ‘A Lost Love’. The ‘Sonnets’ section printed Shakespeare’s Sonnets in their 1609 order, followed by five poems from the Passionate Pilgrim, and finally ‘The Phoenix and the Turtle’. 100 Palgrave manipulated the Pilgrim poems: ‘Crabbed age and youth’ (PP12) is presented in four quatrains under his (re-cycled) title ‘Youth and Age’; ‘Fair is my love, but not so fair as fickle’ (PP7) is ‘Fair and False’; the second part of Poem 14, lines 13 to 30 (‘Lord, how mine eyes throw gazes to the east’) becomes a new poem ‘Tomorrow’, the remainder of that poem, lines 1-12 (‘Goodnight, good rest’) becoming another new poem, ‘Farewell’. ‘Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good…’ (PP13) is given the title ‘Beauty’ and ‘Sweet rose, fair flower, untimely pluck’d’ (PP10) ‘An Elegy’.
To achieve a complete collection of Shakespeare’s lyric poetry, as well as creating ‘new’ poems, Palgrave expanded the category by treating as ‘songs’ extracts not usually thought of as such: short snatches and poems ‘written’ by dramatic characters authorially intended as ‘bad’ poetry. Examples of the first class are, the closing lines of the Dream and lines from one of Antipholus of Syracuse’s speeches. Snatches include Hamlet’s ‘Why let the stricken deer go weep’ and Moth’s ‘If she be made of red and white’ in Love’s Labour’s Lost. ‘Bad’ poems are the lovers’ poems from Love’s Labour’s Lost and Orlando’s ‘Art thou god to shepherd turned’ from As You Like It. (see Appendix 29). The effect of Palgrave’s expansive selection and manipulations was another re-creation of Shakespeare the lyric poet.
‘Pearls’, ‘Choice Thoughts’ and ‘Gems’
Other anthologists took extracts from Shakespeare’s plays and converted them into short poems or aphorisms. There were countless anthologies like this. I examine two representative and successful examples from the mid-century. Pearls of Shakespeare. A Collection of the Most Brilliant Passages found in his Plays extracted ‘the most brilliant passages’ from Shakespeare’s plays and
100 PP12, PP7, PP14, PP13, PP10. 177 assembled a mixture of short ‘poems’ and ‘sentences’, selected for their sentiment or felicitous expression.101 Most of the extracts appeared as poems and the Shakespeare created here was both a lyric poet and source of aphorism, although the drama was acknowledged in the anthology’s title (‘found in his Plays’) and paratexts. Although fewer extracts were used, the selection and the titles applied were so similar to Dodd’s Beauties that it is inconceivable that his anthology was not the anonymous compiler’s source. Like Dodd’s, Pearl’s contents page listed Shakespeare’s plays in three generic groups and does not take from Pericles or The Merry Wives of Windsor. Appendix 30 lists the extracts from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Richard III in Pearls of Shakespeare, alongside Dodd’s selections, to illustrate the remarkable similarities. Extracts were arranged, like Dodd’s, on a play by play basis but without his act, scene or line references to direct readers to the actual plays. Kenny Meadows’ illustrations were a novel selling point. First published in 1860, Pearls was commercially successful with at least two editions in the mid-century.
Choice Thoughts from Shakspere compiled by the ‘author of “The Book of Familiar Quotations” ’ also drew heavily on Dodd. Appearing in 1861, this was one of a number of commercially successful anthologies compiled by L.C. Gent, a prolific anthologist in the second half of the century.102 The book was aimed at younger readers and was re-cycled in 1862 as Extracts from Shakspere for the Use of Schools.103George Routledge & Sons acquired the title and reissued it 1866 and again in 1880 as Shakspere Gems, so it enjoyed longevity and a wide readership.
Propriety was uppermost in Gent’s mind. He aimed to,
present a book specially adapted to the youth of both sexes for use in scholastic and family circles, which, whilst embodying the most prominent beauties, excludes everything which may be deemed objectionable by the most fastidious persons.104
101 Anon., Pearls of Shakespeare (London; Cassell, Petter & Galpin, 1860). 102 [L.C. Gent], Choice Thoughts from Shakspere (London: Whittaker & Co., 1861). 103Kate Rumbold notes these anthologies’ similar prefaces and target readerships, but fails to identify clearly the link between Choice Thoughts and Extracts, both of which she dates from 1862. They are the same book with different title-pages (see British Library catalogue, shelfmarks 11765 b 54 and 11603 ee 9). She incorrectly indicates that J. Bartlett was the compiler of Choice Thoughts. (Rumbold 2011, 97). The confusion may have arisen because John Bartlett was the American author of A Collection of Familiar Quotations, with complete indices of authors and subjects, published in Cambridge, MA in 1856 that had a similar title to Gent’s, The Book of Familiar Quotations. 104 Choice Thoughts, v-vi. 178
Gent hoped that providing extracts from every play ‘varying in length according to its interest and popularity’ with a short outline and the plot of each, could not ‘fail to impart to its readers some knowledge of Shakespeare’s works generally’. He claimed to have been informed by, the principals of high-class educational establishments in various parts of the kingdom [of]the desirability of imparting Shaksperean knowledge to their pupils, [proving] conclusively that some acquaintance with the undying works of Shakspere is by many instructors deemed a desideratum, if not a necessity.105
Unlike Bellew, Gent did not seem to expect his readers to obtain this knowledge from the Complete Works. Gent only took extracts from the plays. The closely packed text is organised play by play. After a synopsis of the plot of each play, the anthology provides a large number of extracts from that play in the order that they appear, organising them under Act sub-headings (without scene or line references). Every extract has a title. Occasionally passages of dialogue are reproduced but generally the extracts appear as ‘poems’ or, occasionally, short aphorisms. The anthology title indicates that these extracts are Shakespeare’s ‘thoughts’ on a range of subjects. That the same collection reappeared as Extracts from Shakspere for the Use of Schools and as Shakspere Gems shows the distinction between play ‘extracts’, poetic ‘gems’ and Shakespeare’s own ‘thoughts’ were blurred. Appendix 31 lists the extracts (with their titles) from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Richard III in Choice Thoughts alongside Dodd’s selections to again demonstrate that Gent’s source was probably Dodd’s anthology. It indicates too that the ‘essential’ Shakespeare had remained remarkably constant for over a century. Choice Thoughts provided a condensed version of the plays, in the form of poems and aphorisms, and gave its readers the appropriate ‘acquaintance’ with the works of Shakespeare, the ‘Shaksperean knowledge’, as the anthologist put it, deemed desirable or necessary for the well- educated person.
105 Ibid. 179
Shakespeare Proverbs
While Pearls of Shakespeare and Choice Thoughts occasionally printed short aphorisms extracted from Shakespeare’s plays, Mary Cowden Clarke’s Shakespeare Proverbs: or the Wisest Saws of our Wisest Poet collected into a modern instance is entirely devoted to these.106 It is of interest as one of the few nineteenth-century anthologies created by a woman and as a product of the leading female Shakespeare scholar of the time. Cowden Clarke’s The Complete Concordance to Shakespeare, some sixteen years in the making, was first published in monthly parts in 1844-5 and in one volume in 1845. She went on to publish The Girlhood of Shakespeare’s Heroines between 1850 and 1852, to edit an edition of Shakespeare’s works published in New York in 1860, and, with her husband Charles, to edit Cassell’s Illustrated Shakespeare of 1864. Her companion volume to the Concordance, The Shakespeare Key appeared in 1879. The preface to Shakepeare Proverbs reveals a utilitarian and ‘improving’ aim: It has been thought, that the wisest and wittiest of SHAKESPEARE’S sayings, collected into such a form as to be readily carried about in the pocket, would furnish the means of employing the otherwise idle half-hour that sometimes occurs in the life of the busiest person; who might thus beguile the tedium of expectation, the listlessness of waiting, the annoyance of delay, or even alleviate the feverishness of suspense and anxiety, by committing to memory these reflections of the greatest human intellect, and so making their elevating influence a part of every-day life.107
Cowden Clarke indicates that the book was aimed at the mass market when she says that Shakespeare, ‘the greatest human intellect’, could provide a source of secular wisdom and comfort: Such quintessential drops of wisdom are surely not ill stored up to support and strengthen us along ‘the steep and thorny way’ that lies before us; and the poor, who need these consolatory aids even more than the rich, will find the price of this small volume to be such as will enable them also to make it their pocket-companion.
She aimed too, to make Shakespeare more accessible, especially to younger readers, with,
106 Mary Cowden Clarke, Shakespeare Proverbs (London: Chapman and Hall, 1848). 107Ibid., 5. 180
an explanatory note here and there [for] the convenience of the younger portion only of the public, to whom the peculiarly condensed use which Shakespeare has made of certain words may not be familiar.108
Cowden Clarke’s Concordance preface indicates the esteem in which she held Shakespeare and presaged the idea underlying Shakespeare Proverbs: Shakespeare the most frequently quoted, because the most universal minded Genius that ever lived,[…]. To what subject may we not with felicity apply a motto from this greatest of Poets?109
Proverbs is a curious creation and rather lightweight compared with much of Cowden Clarke’s scholarship but its preface was a sincere expression of the belief that Shakespeare can comfort and guide. She explained how the book would contain ‘proverbs’ created by Shakespeare, ‘the axioms of Shakespeare that have actually become proverbial’, and how he reworked or paraphrased ‘some of our commonest proverbs in his own choice and elegant diction’. The extracts are organised in alphabetical order, by the first letter of the first word in each. Each alphabetical section is separated by an ornate border across the top of the page and part way down the left hand margin, the first letter in each section a decorated capital. The book isolates hundreds of proverbial sentences (of one to five lines) from Shakespeare’s plays. By way of illustration, Appendix 32 shows the extracts under ‘G’. There is no index, so this is a book to dip into at random. Explanatory footnotes are infrequent and are limited to explaining the meanings of words that have changed since the seventeenth century.110 Without any indication of the proverbs’ source texts they become Shakespeare’s own thoughts or aphorisms, not those of his dramatic characters. Cowden Clarke’s anthology created a Shakespeare, ‘our wisest poet’ who is a source of proverbs offering guidance and comfort.
108 Ibid.7. 109 Mary Cowden Clarke, The Complete Concordance to Shakespeare, (London: C Knight & Co., 1845), v. 110 The only exception is a note (p.40) to the phrase ‘Women are not/In their best fortunes strong, but want will perjure/The ne’er touched vestal’ (AC 3.12. 29-31). Here Cowden Clarke makes a comment running counter to everything that the book does: It should be borne in mind that it is Octavius Caesar who says this, and indeed always, in quoting Shakespeare for the purpose of applying his axioms, it should be remembered to what characters he assigns their utterance. Cowden Clarke’s knowledge of Shakespeare’s plays might enable her to bear this in mind; it is doubtful whether many of her readers could do so.
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Shakespeare Birthday Books and Almanacs
Similar extracts to those in Shakespeare Proverbs were used in numerous Shakespeare Birthday Books published in the later quarter of the nineteenth century. These are a type of Shakespeare anthology with a practical use that has not previously been considered. They are typically pocket-sized books with blank diary pages on the rectos, usually two or three days per page, and on the facing versos one or more short extracts are printed for each day. The diary pages are for the book’s owner to write the names of friends and family opposite their birthdate. Countless birthday books were available in the last quarter of the century and it is impossible to ascertain how many there were. Birthday Books are not necessarily listed in library catalogues for the reasons already noted. The British Library’s catalogue lists hundreds of titles containing the phrase ‘birthday book’ and most are diary-type birthday books but there would have been others without ‘birthday book’ in their title. I have traced only two published before 1875. Themes chosen are manifold. The largest single group uses biblical texts or devotional writings, with over thirty such books catalogued. Next in number are those devoted to Shakespeare, several of which include ‘text’, with its biblical overtones, in their title: The Bard of Avon Birthday Text-book (1880), Birthday Chimes from Shakespeare. A Text-Book of Choice Extracts (1886) and The Shakespeare Birthday Text Book (1898). One of the first was Mary Dunbar’s The Shakespeare Birthday Book, originally published circa 1875 and frequently reprinted, making her a best- selling but completely overlooked Shakespeare anthologist. The earliest copy of Dunbar’s The Shakespeare Birthday Book in the British Library (possibly the first edition) is dated 1875 and describes itself as ‘the third thousand’. An edition dated 1882 was the ‘eighty-fourth thousand’, demonstrating that in a period of less than ten years around eighty thousand copies must have been sold. This compares favourably with the best-selling The Golden Treasury which, as noted earlier, had only reached its ‘67th thousand’ in 1886 after twenty-five years. A publisher’s advertisement in the 1879 edition of Dunbar’s Shakespeare Birthday Book indicates that their target was the female and gift market: it is ‘prettily illustrated’ and ‘many ladies would be glad of so pretty a depository for the memoranda of birthdays’. The large number of Shakespeare Birthday Books made them a significant means of disseminating Shakespeare’s texts, particularly to women and girls. 182
Birthday Chimes from Shakespeare is a representative Shakespeare Birthday Book111. The green cloth cover has a chinoiserie design embossed in black and gold with ‘Shakespeare’, rather than the title, superimposed within a gold banner. Opposite the title-page is a portrait of Shakespeare. An unusual feature is a short preface taken from Emerson’s 1850 essay ‘Shakspeare: or the Poet’. The blank rectos are divided horizontally into three days and there are generally two quotes per day on the versos, each of two or three lines. The extracted quotations are mainly from Shakespeare’s plays, with fifteen from the Sonnets, one from The Passionate Pilgrim (PP13), one from Venus and Adonis and one from A Lover’s Complaint. Appendix 13 lists the extracts for April by way of illustration. Quotations are not especially matched to the date in question although some self-select, ‘O how his (sic) spring of love resembleth | The uncertain glory of an April day’ (TGV 1.3.84-5 ) being a recurring April choice. Extracts from plays are identified by play, act and scene and those from the poems by ‘Sonnet’ or ‘Poems’. All are ‘edited’ to render them timeless and universal. Conjunctions are frequently omitted; words excised or substituted. The extract for 23rd October from Venus and Adonis, for example, is:
Men pleased themselves, think others will delight In such like circumstance, and with such like sport: Their copious stories, oftentimes begun, End without audience and are never done.
The original text is:
Her song was tedious, and outwore the night, For lover’s hours are long, though seeming short. If pleased themselves, others, they think, delight In such like circumstance, with such-like sport. Their copious stories oftentimes begun End without audience, and are never done. (VA 841-846)
The extract for October 31st from A Lover’s Complaint is more heavily manipulated. The extract reads: Some there are who, On the tip of their persuasive tongue, Carry all arguments and questions deep, And replication prompt, and reason strong, To make the weeper smile, the laugher weep, Catching all passions in their craft of will.
111 Birthday Chimes from Shakespeare (Edinburgh: W.P. Nimmo, Hay & Mitchell, 1886) 183
The original is:
So on the tip of his subduing tongue All kinds of arguments and questions deep, All replication prompt, and reason strong, For his advantage still did wake and sleep. To make the weeper smile the laugher weep, He had the dialect and different skill, Catching all passions in his craft of will. (LC 120-126)
Although the extracts are short, often memorable, bite-sized Shakespearean textual fragments, birthday book anthologies are not like dictionaries of quotations – their particular arrangement and function work against this. The extracts used become commonplaces: proverbial statements and aphorisms (‘No legacy is so rich as honesty’), or short exquisitely expressed descriptions or similes (‘She looks as clear/ As morning roses newly washed with dew’).112 Birthday books were not intended to be read through or to be dipped into but had the specific function of recording anniversaries. The preface in Birthday Chimes declares that Shakespeare is ‘inconceivably wise’; it and the other Shakespeare Birthday Books created a Shakespeare who provided timeless and universal wisdom, the source of an apposite phrase for every day of the year, just as Biblical Birthday Books provided a daily religious text.
The Shakespeare Yearbook or Almanac was a variation on the Birthday Book. In these Shakespeare provided an appropriate ‘thought for the day’ for a range of anniversaries. Cassell’s Shakspeare Tercentenary Pocket Almanack (1864) regarded Shakespeare as a source of ‘texts’, his works ‘unrivalled as the grand text- book of the literary world’.113 This Almanack was an ephemeral, thirty-two page, credit card sized booklet. Publishers Cassell, Petter and Galpin distributed it free of charge in an uncovered paper format, and sold it for one penny in a paper wrapper, or two-pence bound in cloth gilt and three-pence bound in leather gilt. Capitalising on the 1864 Tercentenary, it promoted Cassell’s Illustrated Shakespeare, an edition aimed at the mass market and available in inexpensive weekly and monthly parts. The Almanack contained monthly calendar pages, a short article for each month on Shakespeare’s life and times and advertisements for the publishers’ other books. An introduction established the Almanack’s premises and the nature of its
112 Ibid. Entries for April 30 (TS 2.1.172-173) and April 10 (AW 3.5.13) 113 Almanack, 3. 184
‘Shakespeare’,and argued for the indispensability of Cassell’s Illustrated Shakespeare. It suggested it would be thought ‘too wonderful for belief’ that, the writings of any one single man […] were so marvellously comprehensive, that no conversation could be started upon any conceivable subject which might not be adorned by some quotation from those writings.
It explained the booklet’s methodology:
In each month will be found quotations from Shakespeare, side by side with events in history, &c., which figure prominently in the English calendar; and the adaptation of Shakespeare’s sayings to those events, of which very many have taken place more than two centuries after his death, cannot fail to strike the reader with astonishment.114
The calendar pages list the dates and days of each month for 1864. Against several dates each month notable anniversaries, most of recent origin, are recorded followed by an ‘appropriate’ quotation from Shakespeare’s plays, the source text indicated. For example, against 1st June is ‘No Popery Riots, 1780’ followed by ‘The storm is up, and all is on the hazard’ from Julius Caesar; against 27th June is ‘Cawnpore Massacre, June 27th 1857’ and ‘Give me ample satisfaction/ For these deep shames and great indignities’ from The Comedy of Errors. See Appendix 34 for all the June entries. Shakespeare Birthday Books and the Almanack regarded Shakespeare’s works as an indispensable source of thoughts or quotations for any and every topic, day and event, not as plays and poems to be read and performed. Their ‘marvellously comprehensive’ Shakespeare was a conflation of the man and his texts transcending time and space so that fragments of his texts became his ‘thoughts’ and were deemed apposite to events or birthdays many years after his death, as though he had written them contemporaneously in response to those events. As the Almanack’s introduction said, ‘They read, indeed, rather like actual commemorations of the events themselves, than selections from a writer of the sixteenth century’.115
114 Ibid., 2/3. 115 Ibid., 3. 185
IX
Shakespeare the Moral philosopher and his Secular Scripture
The Birthday Books’ use of Shakespeare as a source of apposite wisdom was similar to their use of the Bible for appropriate quotes. In studies like T.R. Eaton’s Shakespeare and the Bible (1860) and Charles Swinburne’s Sacred and Shakespearian Affinities (1890) nineteenth-century critics regarded Shakespeare as a moral philosopher and his texts as a secular Bible and James Bell in Biblical and Shakespearian Characters Compared apparently equated ‘Shakespeare’ and the Bible, writing ‘the English Bible and the Works of Shakespeare may fairly enough be called the noblest possessions of the English-speaking peoples’.116 Nineteenth- century Shakespeare anthologies reflected these ideas in titles like The Wisdom and Genius of Shakspere: comprising moral philosophy, delineations of character, paintings of nature and passions, and miscellaneous pieces (1838), Religious and Moral Sentences Culled from the Works of Shakespeare (1843), The Mind of Shakspeare as Exhibited in his Works (1860), Bible Truths with Shakspearean Parallels (1862), Shakespeare: his religious and moral sentiments. Gems gathered from his writings (1874), An Index to Shakespearian Thought; a collection of passages from the plays and poems of Shakespeare (1880), and Shakespeare’s Morals: Suggestive selections with brief collateral readings and scriptural references (1880). All are books not previously considered as constituting anthologies. The idea of Shakespeare the moral philosopher was not novel. The collection of snippets of Shakespeare’s wisdom or philosophy had been a constituent of early modern commonplace book anthologies and eighteenth-century collections of Shakespearean beauties, but finding close parallels between the Bible and Shakespeare’s texts was a nineteenth-century phenomenon. At its extreme Shakespeare was regarded as divinely inspired; his texts a secular alternative to the Bible. Linda Rozmovits argues that the movement for writing, thinking and talking about the relationship between Shakespeare and the Bible emerged in the 1860s, and
116 James Bell, Biblical and Shakespearian Characters Compared: studies in life and literature (Hull: W. Andrews & Co., 1894), 160. 186 sees 1864 as a watershed in the history of Shakespeare as religion. Rozmovits argues, like Charles LaPorte, that this was a development of Romantic bardolatry influenced by the nineteenth-century German biblical studies that displaced the Bible as a sacred text and literally the word of God and replaced it with the notion of the Bible as literature.117 LaPorte also suggests that, following Eaton’s Shakespeare and the Bible (1860), ‘a subgenre of commonplace book aimed specifically at celebrating the ways that Shakespeare and the Bible speak to each other’ emerged.118 However, Price’s The Wisdom and Genius of Shakespeare (1838) and Watson’s Religious and Moral Sentences (1843) anticipated Eaton by several years and the dates of the other anthologies mentioned suggest that, rather than following Eaton, they emerged from the same intellectual microcosm. This subgenre was, not surprisingly, particularly attractive to clergymen. I will consider representative anthologies that created Shakespeare, the moral philosopher and source of secular scripture.
The Wisdom and Genius of Shakspeare, 1838
The Rev. Thomas Price’s The Wisdom and Genius of Shakspeare presented this Shakespeare in 1838. In this commercially successful anthology Price asserted: ‘There is more moral knowledge contained in a few lines, or a sentence of our author, than is to be found in a whole chapter of those works which treat expressly of Moral Science’. He found ‘a strong tincture of divine truth’ in Shakespeare’ and regarded his texts as secular scripture and Shakespeare as a moral instructor . 119 To support his argument Price embraced extravagant claims made in contemporary journal articles. He quoted the London Magazine of October 1, 1824:
To instruct by delighting is a power seldom enjoyed by man, and still seldomer exercised. It is in this respect that Homer can be called the second of men, and Shakespeare the first. The wisdom of the Greek was not
117 Linda Rozmovits, Shakespeare and the Politics of Culture in late Victorian England, (Baltimore; London: John Hopkins UP, 1998); Charles LaPorte, ‘The Bard, the Bible and the Victorian Shakespeare Question’, ELH, 74.3 (2007), 609-628. 118 Charles LaPorte, ‘The Devotional Texts of Victorian Bardolatry’ in Travis DeCook and Alan Galey, eds., Shakespeare, the Bible, and the Form of the Book (Abingdon; New York: Routledge, 2012), 144-159, 145. 119 Thomas Price, The Wisdom and Genius of Shakspeare (London: Scott, Webster & Geary, 1838),ii. I have traced editions from 1838, 1839 (US) and 1853 (‘enlarged’ edition, UK). 187
so universal as that of the Briton, nor his genius so omnipotent in setting it forth attractively.120
This (unattributed) article went on to suggest that Shakespeare is a high-prophet of profane (secular) inspiration, re-communicating the lessons of divine wisdom. Price endorsed the opinion in another article from the Retrospective Review (undated), in which Shakespeare’s influence for good for the whole of the nation is described in quasi-religious terms. It is quite impossible to estimate the benefits which this country has received from the eternal productions of Shakspeare. Their influence has been gradual but prodigious […] becoming in time diffused over all, spreading wisdom and charity among us. […] He is the teacher of all good – pity, generosity, true courage, love. His works alone (leaving mere science out of the question) contain, probably more actual wisdom than the whole body of English learning. He is the text for the moralist and the philosopher.[…] His bounty is like the sea, which, though often unacknowledged, is everywhere felt; on mountains and plains, and distant palaces, carrying its cloudy freshness through the air, making glorious the heavens, and spreading verdure on the earth beneath.121
Price divided his anthology into sections: ‘Moral Philosophy’; ‘Delineations of Character’ (sub-divided into 1. ‘Noble Characters according to their respective virtues and accomplishments’, 2.’Inferior and Trifling Characters’, 3. ‘Depraved and Hypocritical Characters’ and, 4. ‘Female Characters’, this further divided into ‘Superior’ and ‘Subordinate’); ‘Paintings of Nature and the Passions’; and ‘Aphorisms and Miscellaneous’. He used hundreds of extracts and identified their source in a complicated way that would not encourage readers back to the source text: he listed the plays, numbered them and used that number when attributing extracts. For example, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is play 7, so an extract from Act 2, scene 3 appears as ‘7 –ii.3’. Extracts taken from poems and sonnets are identified as ‘Poems’. An index is arranged according to the sections of the book with the subject-matter of each section listed alphabetically. The ‘Moral Philosophy’ section has 780 numbered extracts, arranged apparently randomly under subject headings like ‘Friends Parting’ or ‘Flattery’. The ‘Delineations of Character’ extracts are untitled with no indication of the dramatic
120 Ibid., v. 121 Ibid., v/vi.
188 character referred to. Thus Helena’s comment on Hermia appears detached from the play and applicable to any angry female:
615 O, when she’s angry, she is keen and shrewd: She was a vixen when she went to school; And though she be but little she is fierce. 7 – iii.2
Despite Price’s prefatory claims, his anthology is not limited to moral philosophy; he also collected Shakespearean proverbs and beauties. The passages he used from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (see Appendix 35) included and added to the extracts used by Dodd and many subsequent anthologists.
Religious and Moral Sentences culled from the Works of Shakespeare, 1843 Sir Frederick Watson’s curious publication, Religious and Moral Sentences Culled from the Works of Shakespeare, was commercially successful, with a second edition in 1847 and at least one American edition in 1859 (often incorrectly attributed to Frederic D. Huntington who contributed its introduction). Watson aimed to prove that Shakespeare was not a papist but a true protestant and member of the Church of England, thus claiming him for the protestant majority, the ‘establishment’. His agenda may have been nationalistic too, retaining Shakespeare for the English in the face of Catholic Germany’s reverence for Shakespeare.122 The impetus for the anthology arose following Watson’s visit to a Shakespeare’s Relicks exhibition in Stratford-upon-Avon which displayed a Roman Catholic form of will purporting to be Shakespeare’s ‘genuine’ will.123 Watson resolved, in justice to Shakespeare’s memory – in justice to the reformed religion – in justice to the divinity of Truth – to expose the fraudulent design, by proving from Shakespeare’s own writings, that he lived and died a true protestant.124
For Watson ‘our immortal Shakespeare’ is a philosopher and a true protestant, forced by circumstances to be a playwright and to convey his personal
122 I am grateful to Gail Marshall for this suggestion. 123 I have been unable to trace this exhibition; it was probably Mary Hornby’s permanent exhibition of Shakespearean relics. 124 Frederick Watson, Religious and Moral Sentences Culled from the Works of Shakespeare (London: Calkin & Budd, 1843), xix. 189 thoughts and ideas via the words of his dramatic characters. Using Sonnet 111 (‘O, for my sake, do thou with fortune chide’) as evidence, Watson depicted a Shakespeare with ‘a mind singularly gifted’ but obliged ‘to “please the ears of the groundlings” ’. Examples of Shakespeare’s ‘intellectual supremacy’ are adduced and supported by lines from his plays. Lines from Troilus and Cressida ‘prove’ that Shakespeare discovered gravity in advance of Newton: how shall we express our surprise and admiration at his distinctly defining the principle of gravitation, long before Sir Isaac Newton was born, - to whom the merit of the discovery has been so honourably attributed […] As it applies to our Earth it is thus defined by Shakespeare:-
- Time, force and death, Do to this body what extremes they (sic) can; But the strong base, and building of my love Is, as the very centre of the earth, Drawing all things to it. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, iv.2.125
Watson placed Shakespeare extracts alongside scriptural extracts ‘in parallel positions, to shew the close affinity that exists between the sentences exhibited from his works, and passages taken from Holy Writ’.126 There is no index; all the passages are from plays with the source identified. The anthology does not encourage dipping in and out; its structure demands that the reader follows Watson’s argument. The first section ‘Passages extracted from the works of Shakespeare; adduced as presumptive evidence that the tenets of the religion which he professed were not of the Roman Catholic Persuasion’ comprises short extracts mostly from Henry VIII and King John but also from 1 & 2 Henry VI and Henry V in order to demonstrate Shakespeare’s anti-papist views. They are interspersed with the Watson’s own comments which exhibit a repetitive hysterical desperation, sprinkled with emphatic italics, to prove that Shakespeare was not only not a Roman Catholic but also a member of the Church of England:
The following anti-papistical sentences [are selected] with a view to corroborate […] that he was a true and professed member of the protestant Church of England. […] There is nothing presented in his writings, or in the few records we have of his life, that in the least indicates his having held the Roman Catholic faith
125 Ibid., xvi. 126 Ibid., xix/xx. 190
[…]That he was a member of the Protestant Church of England is indisputably corroborated, by the circumstances of his children having all been baptized in that faith, in which faith he made his real last Will and Testament, and in which faith he was buried in his own Protestant Parish Church.127
When Watson felt he had done enough to convince readers that Shakespeare was not a papist, he aimed to demonstrate through Shakespeare’s ‘own writings’, that he was ‘a true and worthy member of the Reformed Church of England’. Watson did this, by placing, in juxtaposition with his own religious sentences, corresponding passages from Holy Writ; thereby proving how versed he was in the Scriptures, as exemplified by the similitude of his religious sentences to the passages drawn from the Bible, and the Liturgy of the Church of England.128
Extracts are now organised under topics ranging alphabetically from ‘Abel’ to ‘World’s Dissolution’. On the verso pages are quotations from Shakespeare and on the rectos ‘parallel’ passages from the Bible or the Book of Common Prayer. Some extracts are closely linked; for example, under ‘SPARROW’, a passage from Troilus and Cressida ‘I will buy nine sparrows for a penny, and his pia mater is not worth the ninth part of a sparrow’ is opposite a passage from Luke XII: ‘Are not five - sparrows sold for two farthings? Ye are of more value than many sparrows’. In other cases, apart from the use of the same word, it is hard to see linguistic parallels or how the extracts ‘prove’ Watson’s contention. For example, under ‘SEA’ Watson selects ‘But I am not to say, it is a sea, for it is now the sky; betwixt the firmament and it, you cannot thrust a bodkin’s point’ from The Winter’s Tale and Psalm XCIII’s ‘The floods are risen, O Lord! The floods lift up their waves; the waves of the sea are mighty, and rage horribly’. In the next section parallel texts are abandoned and Watson uses only extracts from Shakespeare to show ‘how copiously he drew from the pure source of his own all-gifted mind, sentences of high morality and true religion’, in other words Shakespeare’s own ‘sacred writing’. These extracts are grouped under headings: ‘God’, ‘Heaven’, ‘Death’, ‘Soul’, ‘Prayer’, ‘Holy’, ‘Sacrament’ and ‘War’ with extracts intended to demonstrate ‘in what a pure religious sense [Shakespeare] treats and considers each’. Watson adopted a concordance methodology that diminishes his
127 Ibid., 5/6. 128 Ibid., 17. 191 argument. For example, extracts that incorporate the word ‘heaven’, ‘heavens’ or ‘heavenly’ are placed under ‘Heaven’ irrespective of whether they refer to the Christian Heaven/God, to the sky or are simply an exclamation. Finally, Watson invites readers to agree that the anthology has ‘fully established the point we aimed at, viz. – of proving that Shakespeare was not a Papist, but a worthy member of the Church of England’ concluding with the rhetorical question ‘Can there be named any other general dramatist that ever lived, who has combined so many religious and moral sentences in his works as Shakespeare has?’129 The remainder of the anthology comprises an ‘appendix’ to suggest Shakespeare’s connection with ‘the high personages who, when living, appreciated his works, and patronised his genius’.130 An engraving of Stotard’s ‘Shakespeare’s Interview with Queen Elizabeth’ is followed by an essay ‘Shakespeare at Nonsuch’ suggesting how Shakespeare may have been introduced to the Queen by Essex through his connection with ‘his friend and munificent patron’ Southampton’. Passages in Shakespeare that might allude to the Queen are followed by Horace Walpole’s description of Nonsuch Palace, a portrait and short biographical sketch of Southampton and a memorandum of dates and events in Southampton’s life. This cadenza tries hard to connect Shakespeare to his contemporary social ‘establishment’. Watson followed Price in creating a ‘philosopher Shakespeare’ by collecting short extracts from his plays. His desperate arguments to claim a ‘respectable’ Shakespeare for the established church and the social establishment are eccentric, but his book provides another example of an anthology that regarded Shakespeare’s texts as secular scripture, that sought parallels between Shakespeare’s texts and the Bible and created Shakespeare the moralist and philosopher.
The Mind of Shakspeare as Exhibited in his Works, 1860 The Rev. A.A. Morgan’s The Mind of Shakspeare as Exhibited in his Works, published in 1860, sold well with subsequent editions in 1861, 1876, 1880 and 1894. Although the title does not suggest an anthology it amounts to one and again demonstrated the critical approach that believed that Shakespeare voiced his own thoughts through his dramatic characters. Morgan used ‘independent’ extracts from
129 Ibid., 206, 207. 130 Ibid., 207. 192
Shakespeare to establish Shakespeare’s philosophy ‘untrammelled by dramatic appendage’, writing: In order then to form an estimate of the Mind, the feelings and opinions of Shakspeare, the most obvious course seemed to be the following; to gather together every independent passage to be found in the whole of his works; every passage which could be disconnected from the machinery of the plots, or thread of the context, and made to bear a general character, and universal application; and then to classify them under their respective heads.131
An ‘Advertisement’ accurately promised that the anthology ‘embraces the whole system of Shakspeare’s philosophy and ethics apart from the machinery of his Plays and poems’, and provided a, comprehensive register of his [Shakespeare’s] maxims and wise sayings; exhibiting views and sentiments on upwards of five hundred subjects applicable to human life and manners in all ages.
It describes his methodology:
The subjects are alphabetically arranged, and so classified that Shakspeare’s various treatment of any particular topic may be found under one general head. Each of the quotations is headed by an explanatory analysis, with the aim of giving prominence to the leading sentiment involved in the passage, and simplifying the meaning.132
Morgan’s introduction identified a further aim, to provide the essential Shakespeare, which, for Morgan, was the philosopher Shakespeare’s ‘wisdom’, for those without the time or desire to study Shakespeare’s texts for themselves: there was also the subordinate idea of enabling those who perhaps have neither time nor inclination to peruse his plays and works in detail, to possess themselves with something of the essence of his varied wisdom, in spare moments, and with economy of time and labour. He that would thoroughly appreciate the Mind of Shakspeare is more likely to do so by fixing the attention on some of his choice gems, than by desultory perusal of his Dramas. For the absorbing interest connected with the unravelment of the plot has the effect of distracting the mind from the merit of the particular passages, and leads it to hurry on to the development and climax of the narrative.133
Extracts are placed under a wide range of subject headings, from ‘Absence’, ‘Dimples’ and ‘Wren’ to ‘Eagle’ and ‘Fern-seed’. Towards the end of the book
131 Ibid., xiv. 132 A.A. Morgan, The Mind of Shakspeare as Exhibited in his Works (London: Chapman & Hall, 1860), v. 133 Ibid., xxii. 193
‘Proverbs and Trite Expressions introduced in the Plays’ are listed haphazardly and then ‘proverbs’ found in Shakespeare’s poems. Oddly, for an anthologist that regarded Shakespeare as a moral philosopher, a comprehensive collection of songs from Shakespeare’s plays is printed at the end of the book. According to Morgan, Shakespeare is a genius. The ‘gigantic compass’ of Shakespeare’s mind, produced harmonies and combinations beyond the range of any ordinary intellect, that astonish by their peculiar originality; and charm by the native simplicity of their beauty. From that Mind issued views, maxims and sentiments, whose application and reference time can never destroy.134
Once again Shakespeare is described as forced by ‘accidental circumstances’ to write plays in order to express ‘the richest treasures of his Mind and Genius’. Plays, Morgan opined, are ‘not perhaps the best field for the free exhibition of a lofty intellect’, but, ‘in spite of the constraint and imprisonment imposed by the machinery of the Drama’, Shakespeare had ‘uttered a host of sentiments, ideas, aphorisms and doctrines’ which are universal and timeless (‘capable of being withdrawn from all special application’) and comprehensive: On upwards of five hundred subjects connected with the mysteries of providence, the order of Nature, human Life and manners, the general course of the world and Philosophy at large, he has lavished thought, and amplified instruction.135
Morgan, aware of objections to his approach, was unable to counter these with cogent argument, only with sentiment and a reluctance to accept that the plays might not reveal ‘Shakespeare the man’: It may however be objected that, as regards the extracts from his Plays, they cannot fairly be taken to represent his opinions, as he was to put them in the mouths of others, and interwoven them with the thread of his narratives, and dialogues of the characters. But whatever show of justice this objection may present, the alternative is indeed lamentable, if we admit its reasonableness and receive it as conclusive; because then we may be said to be literally without any knowledge whatever of the Poet’s personal impressions, feelings, or sentiment on a single subject, as far as his Plays are concerned; and are thrown entirely on his Sonnets, and few occasional Pieces, to ascertain the bent and convictions of his Mind. I cannot therefore help concluding that the present compilation may be regarded as a fair exhibition of that mind.136
134 Ibid., xi. 135 Ibid., xiii 136 Ibid., xv. 194
For Morgan Shakespeare’s mind exhibited a sound Christian morality: With respect then, to the First Cause of all things, the sentiments of the Poet are not only of the sublimest order, but also in the strictest accordance with what He has revealed to us of Himself, and consequently, ‘from the Works of Shakspeare may be gathered a Code or System of Morality embracing all the main essentials of an exemplary and manly character’.137
Bible Truths with Shakspearean Parallels, 1862 James Brown shared similar aims with Watson and Morgan. In Bible Truths with Shakspearean Parallels he tried to show that the Bible was a principal influence on Shakespeare, moulding and guiding his intellect, and that Shakespeare’s works reflect ‘sterling biblical morality’.138 First published in 1862 the anthology was successful with a second edition in 1864, and was also published in America. Brown aimed to demonstrate that Shakespeare’s works are, perfectly impregnated with the leaven of the Bible […] that we can scarcely open them as if by accident without encountering one or other of its great truths which his genius has assimilated and reproduced in words that seem to renew its authority, and strengthen its claims upon men’s attention.139
For Brown, much of Shakespeare’s superiority as a writer was attributable to his adoption of the morality of Scripture in his works. Brown quoted and agreed with Professor George Wilson who had complained that readers no longer sufficiently perused ‘their Bibles and their Shakespeares and regretted that the ‘literature of the day’, especially in periodicals, had almost supplanted ‘the literature of the ages’. Brown despaired that ‘reverence for our best books seems to have decayed in proportion as their cheapness and plentifulness has increased’, that contemporary readers ‘seldom sit down to a book as our forefathers used to do, when books cost a deal of money, with the deliberate view of getting profit and instruction out of it’ but simply read ‘to stop up with pleasure to ourselves the gaps that occur in the intervals of business’.140 These gaps in the intervals of business were gaps that Cowden Clarke, Watson and Brown all hoped their Shakespeare anthologies might fill.
137 Ibid.,. xvi, xix 138 James Brown, Bible Truths with Shakspearean Parallels (London: Whittaker & Co., 1862), v. 139 Ibid., viii. 140 Ibid., xvii-xix. 195
Brown’s anthology is organised into topical sections with titles like ‘Man’s Redemption’, ‘The Fall of Ambition’ and ‘Universality of Guilt’. Under these headings a selection of Biblical extracts are followed by Shakespearean ones. His extracts are from the plays and the poems, all are sourced and most are short and aphoristic. Brown aimed to show how Shakespeare adopted a biblical sentiment and reworked it. A typical example is: IX. GOVERNMENT UNDER A CHILD
Woe to thee O land, when thy king is a child. ECCLES. x.16
Woe to the land that’s govern’d by a child. KING RICHARD III Act II, Scene 3. 141
In a short section at the end of the book, ‘Shakespeare’s Allusions to Scriptural Characters, Incidents Etc.’, Brown notes New and Old Testament allusions in Shakespeare’s texts. An essay explains how these allusions demonstrate more fully Shakespeare’s intimate and exceptional acquaintance with the Bible. It suggested that as a source of moral truths Shakespeare’s works are equivalent to the Scriptures: Outside the Scriptures themselves there is no more eloquent exponent of divine truth than he; and so comprehensive is the range of his intelligence in this speciality of his many-sided power, that there is scarcely a valuable truth in the wide field of moral philosophy the Scriptures unfold, he has not wielded with the overwhelming power which genius only can and illustrated with that colossal breadth of utterance which is his, and his alone.142
Shakespeare, however, rejuvenated these truths:
Subjects that have served the purposes of moralists and philosophers so long, that it is all but impossible to say anything new about them that is true; or true that is new; these he clothes with such freshness and rejuvenescence, and launches them with such emphasis and originality that they strike again as if for the first time.143
X
Nineteenth-century anthologies that collected extracts exclusively from Shakespeare fall into three broad categories. The first, like Palgrave’s Songs and
141 Ibid., 15. 142 Ibid. 128. 143 Ibid., 135-6. 196
Sonnets by William Shakespeare, made Shakespeare into a lyric poet and reinforced the work of those who created this Shakespeare in anthologies drawing from many poets. The second category comprised the collections of Shakespearean ‘gems’, ‘pearls’ and ‘thoughts’. Included in this group are previously overlooked kinds of anthology: birthday books, almanacs and artefacts incorporating extracts from Shakespeare. Such anthologies typically collected short extracts chosen for their sentiment or their poetic expression: what the eighteenth century had termed beauties and the seventeenth century called sentences or commonplaces. Their organisation and alphabetically ordered topical headings often imitated early modern commonplace book anthologies. Anthologies in this second category mined Shakespeare’s plays (predominantly) for his words or ‘thoughts’ on any and every subject and thereby created a moral philosopher: Shakespeare the source of wisdom, aphorisms, proverbs, the provider of moral and behavioural guidance and a source of comfort and inspiration for all. The third category of nineteenth-century anthologies, those exploring the connections between Shakespeare and the Bible, form a sub- group of the collections of ‘choice thoughts’ with the specific purpose of demonstrating that the philosopher Shakespeare was a sound Christian. The paratextual material in these anthologies often expresses a desire to reach a large readership at all levels of society, revealing paternalistic and didactic aims of disseminating Shakespeare as widely as possible, and reaching readers whom the anthologists considered ought to ‘know’ Shakespeare but who might not read his texts in their original form. They frequently assured their readers, moreover, that Shakespeare was a genius and the greatest poet the world has ever seen. Within the scope of this thesis I have only been able to focus on representative examples of the countless anthologies which include extracts from Shakespeare that circulated in the nineteenth century. If each one of this multitude of anthologies reached only a fraction of the readers that Natalie Houston has suggested, then their influence in shaping how the century perceived Shakespeare was considerable. Collectively they created for readers two distinct Shakespeares: a lyric poet and a philosopher and generally overlooked the dramatist. Whether, as Adrian Poole suggests, the Victorian anthologists consciously sought to rescue ‘Shakespeare the Poet’ from the theatre and make him ‘respectable’ is debatable. Shakespeare the philosopher and Shakespeare the lyric poet whom the anthologists created were certainly ‘respectable’ and their paratexts often depicted Shakespeare as 197 a reluctant dramatist. The cumulative effect of the anthologies meant that their creations, the philosopher Shakespeare and poet Shakespeare, stood alongside Shakespeare the dramatist and, in the minds of readers who only engaged with Shakespeare through the pages of anthologies, supplanted the playwright.
198
5. ‘A sort of miscellany with a purpose’1: Twentieth-Century Anthologies using Shakespeare
Countless anthologies were published in the twentieth century so I concentrate on significant representative examples that create a Shakespeare. Anthologies might be significant because they are ‘standard works’, because they reflected the zeitgeist, because they were created by famous people or writers, because they developed the anthology format, or because they reached a large readership. Printed books remained the most common format, but publication in other forms and through performance, both live and recorded, with the capacity to reach large audiences, was increasingly significant. I consider first The Oxford Book of English Verse, significant as a reliquary of an established canon of English Poetry. I then focus on a number of wartime anthologies that demonstrate different anthology methodologies and formats. Some of these also fall within the next category I examine: Shakespeare anthologies with an existence in performance and print. Finally I consider two contrasting Shakespeare anthologies, The Prince of Wales’s The Prince’s Choice and Ted Hughes’s A Choice of Shakespeare’s Verse, which fall within a number of the categories mentioned above, but have significance because of the identity of their anthologists.
I
The Oxford Book of English Verse
Four editions of the enduring and influential The Oxford Book of English Verse from 1900, 1939, 1972 and 1999, span the twentieth century. All sold well to reach a large readership.2 Whereas The Golden Treasury feels like a personal collection (it is commonly prefixed ‘Palgrave’s’) The Oxford Book has an ‘official’ character. Originally compiled by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (‘Q’) in 1900, it rapidly became a standard anthology for the twentieth century. Oxford University Press’s website, marketing Christopher Ricks’s 1999 edition, claims that since 1900 The
1 Robert Bridges, Letter to Donald Wooldridge, 9 May 1915. Donald E. Stanford, ed., The Letters of Robert Bridges (London; Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1984), 654. 2 My 1970s copy of Q’s 1939 edition indicates eleven reprints between 1939 and 1971 and that the 1900 edition had seventeen reprints between 1900 and 1939. My edition of Gardner’s New Oxford Book indicates seventeen reprints between 1972 and 1994. 199
Oxford Book of English Verse has ‘established itself as the foremost anthology of English poetry’.3 Ricks, aware of the anthology’s status, describes it as ‘the foremost celebration of English poetry in all its lasting powers’, no longer the rival of The Golden Treasury but its ‘worthy successor’.4 John Kerrigan’s review of Ricks’s edition suggested that it was presented to appeal to the mass market as an essential cultural commodity: Stoutly bound in blue and gold, and wrapped in a parchment-thick jacket adorned with quill pens, the facsimile of a Shakespeare sonnet, and what looks like National Trust wallpaper, this is scholarship as heritage object, marketed with one eye on the academy but the other on mail-order book clubs.5
Q’s revised Oxford Book (1939) and Helen Gardner’s New Oxford Book of English Verse (1972) remain on sale. The OUP website claims that Q’s edition, ‘the very first Oxford Book’ is ‘as popular as ever’ having ‘established itself as a classic anthology’ and Gardner calls Q’s edition ‘the classic anthology of English poetry’.6 The publishers market Gardner’s anthology in a similar way to Q’s, as containing ‘the best of English Poetry in one volume’ and ‘now firmly established as a classic anthology of English Poetry’7. The Oxford Book is regarded as more than the sum of its contents, ‘the best’ English verse; it is a quasi-official publication leading F.R. Leavis to refer to its ‘institutional status’.8 Inclusion in The Oxford Book, in the ‘official’ body of English poetry, publicly recognises and values a poet. The anthology’s title helps it towards ‘official’ status. Various titles were mooted: Lyra Britannica, The Oxford Anthology, The Golden Book of English Verse, The Pageant of English Poetry, but the final choice is plain and authoritative.9 ‘Book’ has its roots in Old English, unlike ‘anthology’ or ‘treasury’ which are derived from the Greek. ‘Book’ carries less a suggestion of subjectivity than titles that incorporate ‘choice’, ‘pageant’, ‘collection’ or ‘treasury’. The definite article says it is ‘the’ book, implying the only one, or the only one that matters, rather than
3
‘a’ book, one of many. ‘The Book of’ also echoes The Book of Common Prayer and the various ‘books of’ the Bible. Mimicking ‘the’ Bible, The Oxford Book takes on the mantle of an authorised version as the book of English verse. The use of very thin India paper in many early editions, typically used for Bibles and Prayer Books, and the dark blue colour cover with gilt lettering also encourages an association with the Bible. All later editions and revisions retain this cover style, if not the India paper. Anne Ferry discusses the use of the phrase ‘Book of’ in the titles of anthologies, arguing that the grammar of this phrase distinguishes between the book itself as material object and the entries in it. There is no need to use the word ‘book’, it is obvious that the object is a book, but ‘book of’ denotes that the object is the holder of something special: Simply, the preposition of allows the phrase to signify this double status: a book consisting of or made out of songs and sonnets, but also a book not made out of but filled with or containing songs or sonnets[…] the preposition of diagrams the case that a book does not belong exclusively to the sphere of discourse. It also occupies space in the world of physical objects, like a package, and within that class it belongs, like a package, to the subset of objects that are themselves containing spaces. 10
Like casket, or cabinet – two words often used in anthology titles – ‘book’, Ferry argues, shows ‘a sense of need to point to the anthology as a book not wholly identifiable with or wholly describable by its contents’, a need not suggested by single poet volume titles like ‘The Poetical Works of …’ or ‘Ariel’ or simply ‘Poems’.11 This effect is enhanced when ‘book of’ is coupled with the definite article. The Oxford Book’s publishers have the advantage of being able to use ‘Oxford’ in its title. ‘Oxford’, used as a shorthand for The Oxford University Press, carries with it Oxford’s globally recognised cultural capital.12 In 1900 Oxford and its university was at the academic heart of a world-wide empire and, today, as the home of The Oxford English Dictionary and the Oxford University Press, arguably, it remains the academic capital of an ‘English’ empire. As a best-seller, The Oxford Book of English Verse, like The Golden Treasury, had an enduring effect on poetry generally and on the dissemination of Shakespeare. David Hopkins argues that Palgrave’s restriction to ‘lyrical’ poems
10 Ferry 2001, 21. 11 Ibid., 23/4 12 The OUP imprint for the first edition was The Clarendon Press. 201 turning on a single thought, feeling or situation and Q’s similar restriction to poems ‘lyrical and epigrammatic’ is a significant factor in ‘the popular assumption […] that the word ‘poem’ denotes a piece of writing usually cast in the first person, and printable on one, or at the very most two or three sides of paper’.13 Coming to Shakespeare via either edition of Q’s Oxford Book you might think that Shakespeare only wrote short lyrics and amorous sonnets as here Shakespeare is represented by some songs from his plays, a ‘sonnet’ from Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Phoenix and the Turtle and twenty sonnets (see Appendix 36). 14 Q’s Oxford Book reflected, reinforced, and carried into the twentieth century, Shakespeare the lyric poet. Q covers ‘the whole field of English verse’ from 1250 to 1900, presenting his selection chronologically by the poets’ dates of birth.15 His short, confident and authoritative preface sets out his selection criteria: ‘the best’ English verses that are ‘lyrical and epigrammatic’. He hopes that the book will ‘serve those who already love poetry and [will] implant that love in some young minds not yet initiated’.16 Including frequently anthologised poems is a virtue: ‘The best is the best, though a hundred judges have declared it so’.17 A contents table lists poets in order of appearance alongside their dates of birth and death, the reference number(s) of their poem(s) and the relevant page number(s). Authors are then listed alphabetically alongside the reference number(s) of their poem(s). These paratexts suggest that the identity of the poets is as important as their poetry; Q is saying ‘These are the poets that represent English poetry - the names you need to know’. An ‘Index of First Lines’ at the back enables readers to locate particular poems. The poems are all numbered and follow one another without break, frequently running over from one page to the next, occasionally in mid-stanza. Poems are grouped under sub-headings of the poets’ names and dates and given titles if lacking authorial ones. Thus Q established a resilient template which has, in essence, been followed in all later versions of The Oxford Book of English Verse. Shakespeare ‘cannot be left out of any anthology of English poetry without reducing it to absurdity’ wrote John Wain in 1986.18 But aside from the sonnets, The
13 David Hopkins, ‘On Anthologies’, The Cambridge Quarterly, 37.3 (2008), 285-304, 291. 14 The Shakespeare texts in both of Q’s editions are identical. 15 Arthur Quiller-Couch, The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1900), vii – ix. Q’s 1939 edition extended the end date to 1918. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid., x. 18 John Wain, ed., The Oxford Anthology of English Poetry, 2 vols. (Oxford: OUP, 1986), xxi. 202
Phoenix and the Turtle, and perhaps extracts from the narrative poems one would not necessarily expect to find extracts from Shakespeare’s plays in a chronological anthology, either in 1900 or today. Q sidesteps the issue by limiting his choice of extracts from Shakespeare’s plays to songs, which clearly fall within his lyric guidelines19. He treats other early modern dramatists in the same way and does not excerpt from later verse drama. Q’s selection from Shakespeare is similar to Palgrave’s. He uses all Palgrave’s Shakespearean lyrics and adds another eight. Q’s choice of sonnets overlaps less; both select twenty, with thirteen in common.20 Q’s anthology, like Palgrave’s, created a Shakespeare who is a lyric poet and sonneteer. Shakespeare retained this identity in Helen Gardner’s 1972 New Oxford Book of English Verse. Gardner, uneasy about ignoring verse drama, followed her predecessor’s example, and justified her stance by stating that in the case of the drama ‘context is all-important’.21 She selected many of the same songs as Q and, allowing herself to extract from long poems, Gardner also included two passages from Shakespeare’s narrative poems. Her selection shows that, in the case of Shakespeare, the textual fragments considered appropriate for an Oxford Book of English Verse had not changed significantly between 1900 and 1972. Gardner used forty Shakespearean extracts to Q’s forty-two, with thirty-one in common (see Appendix 36). The balance between songs and sonnets is identical: each selected twenty sonnets with fifteen in common.22 The Oxford Book of English Verse finally reflected Shakespeare as dramatist and poet in 1999. Ricks used thirty-four Shakespearean extracts: The Phoenix and the Turtle, eleven sonnets, and twenty-two extracts from the plays, including seven songs also selected by Gardner and Q (see Appendix 36). Ricks introduced fifteen speeches from Shakespeare’s plays, including several, if not all, of the most ‘famous’ speeches. Ricks justified this decision in his preface. It noted his predecessors’ exclusion of dramatic verse, despite its ‘supremacy’. He accepts that drama is a mixed medium (‘not words but people moving about on stage using words’) but points to a ‘traditional inconsistency’ in his predecessors’ inclusion of songs and hymns and poems by ‘graphic artist and poet’ William Blake without their
19 Over hill, over dale…’ (MND 2.1) is regarded as a ‘song’ by Q and Gardner, perhaps because it sits neatly with ‘You spotted snakes…’, although there is no indication of this in the play text. 20 See Appendices 18 and 36. 21 Gardner, v. 22 Gardner followed Q by using songs from other early modern verse dramatists (with similar choices) and by excluding extracts from other verse drama. 203
‘visual embodiment’. Thus he finds it no more anomalous to include in an anthology of verse ‘the accomplishments of Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre’. 23 Ricks’s break with ‘tradition’ was not entirely new: some previous anthologies had included dramatic extracts from Shakespeare, but had not enjoyed the quasi-official standing of the Oxford Books.24 The three Oxford anthologists’ choices and presentation of Shakespeare’s texts affect the Shakespeare they create. All follow Q’s chronological template and divide the text with headings comprising the poets’ names and dates. This suggests Shakespeare’s role in an orderly succession and development of English poetry. Thus Shakespeare is preceded by Marlowe in Ricks and Q and, depending on who is ‘in’ or ‘out’, he is followed by Rowlands, Nashe and Campion (Q) or Bastard, Campion and Nashe (Ricks) with Jonson appearing shortly afterwards. This ostensibly neutral arrangement supports Ricks’s prefatory assertions that Marlowe was Shakespeare’s ‘inaugurator’, Jonson his ‘competitor’ and the others his successors. Gardner interrupts this thread to place those like Sidney or Marlowe, who died before 1600 and are strictly Elizabethans, before poets like Greville and Ralegh who survived into the Jacobean period.25 The three anthologists arrange the Shakespearean extracts broadly in order of composition, suggesting Shakespeare’s individual development as a poet; exceptions are the sonnets which are grouped together, either before the other extracts (Ricks) or afterwards (Q and Gardner) and the ‘Fairyland’ section in Q which groups songs from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest. All place their chosen sonnets in the 1609 order. Ricks groups the songs in chronological order, ahead of the other extracts from the plays, which are also arranged chronologically. Q modernises all but the earliest poems where ‘inflection and spelling are structural and to modernize is to destroy’ and Gardner
23 Ricks, xxxvi. As well as Shakespeare, Ricks used extracts from plays by Webster, Jonson, Marlowe and Tourneur (to whom he attributes The Revenger’s Tragedy) and from the dramas of Milton and Dryden. 24 John Wain’s Oxford Anthology offered ninety-one pages of extracts from Shakespeare’s plays including passages of dialogue and individual speeches. His antecedent anthology, W. Peacock’s five volume ‘The World’s Classics’ English Verse, (1928) also drew heavily on the plays. In Volume 2 of Poets of the English Language, W.H. Auden and Norman Holmes Pearson famously included the whole of Antony and Cleopatra in their generous selection from Shakespeare. 25 Gardner, vii. She abandons chronology to place MacNeice’s, A Fanfare for the Makers, as an ‘Epilogue’ and final comment on the whole book. 204 follows Q. 26 Only Ricks does not modernise spellings, retaining ‘in the appearance of the poems some sense of the passing of centuries, of auld lang syne’.27 Q and Gardner number the sonnets under an umbrella title ‘sonnets’ but they often provide ‘descriptive’ or ‘first line’ titles and present other Shakespeare extracts as discrete ‘poems’. Susan Bassnett argues that Q ‘wanted his students to read texts, directly and unmediated’, yet Q’s titles work directly against that aim and distort how the Shakespearean ‘poems’ are read.28 When not using the first line, Q’s titles can be neutral, for example, ‘Spring and Winter’ for the songs from Love’s Labour’s Lost and ‘Bridal Song’ but others are more intrusive and directive. The title ‘The Blossom’ for the lyric from Love’s Labour’s Lost encourages readers to regard it as simpler than perhaps it is.29 Collecting two songs from Dream and three from the Tempest under the title ‘Fairy Land’ couples lyrics from two very different plays to suggest that all are mellifluous ‘fairy’ ditties, camouflaging the uneasiness and oddness of Ariel’s ‘Come unto these yellow sands’ and ‘Full fathom five thy father lies’. The ‘Fairy Land’ evoked is that of Mendelssohn’s or Beerbohm Tree’s Dream. There is no indication anywhere in Q’s editions that the Shakespeare lyrics he prints have any connection with plays. Gardner is slightly less cavalier. Her main text does not indicate the extracts’ source texts but her notes identify the source of ‘Courser and Jennet’ and ‘An Outcry upon Opportunity’ (from Venus and Adonis and Lucrece respectively), however, for the uninitiated, there is little indication that each forms part of a longer poem or that they are different in kind to ‘The Phoenix and the Turtle’.30 She also gives the sources of ‘Orpheus with his lute made trees’ and ‘Roses their sharp spines being gone’, although this is partly to point out that they may be Fletcher’s. Gardner does provide oblique clues for the initiated. Lyrics are grouped by source play in order of appearance and linked to a character in that play: Songs from The Tempest are found under the title ‘Ariel’s Songs’ and songs from Twelfth Night under ‘Feste’s Songs’, ‘When daffodils begin to peer’ is ‘Autolycus Sings’ and ‘Fear no more the heat o’the sun is ‘Dirge for Fidele’. Overwhelmingly though Gardner’s and Q’s selections and presentation create a Shakespeare who is a lyric poet and sonneteer.
26 Quiller-Couch, viii. 27 Ricks, xxxviii. 28 Susan Bassnett, ‘A Century of Editing: The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1900-1999’, European Studies, 16 (2001), 251-264. 256. 29 Palgrave’s title is ‘Love’s Perjuries’. 30 Only Gardener includes extracts from Shakespeare’s narrative poems. 205
Ricks’s approach is different. Extracts from Shakespeare’s plays incorporate speech prefixes and stage directions and have their source emphasised by the use of ‘titles’ indicating the play, act and scene,31 all making clear that the extract is not a ‘poem’ but a dramatic extract. Thus ‘Full fathom five’ ( item 106) appears as follows:
106 from The Tempest [Act I, scene ii]
Ariel Full fadom five thy Father lies, Of his bones are Corrall made: Those are pearles that were his eies, Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a Sea-Change Into something rich and strange: Sea-Nimphs hourly ring his knell. [Burthen: ding dong.] Harke now I heare them, ding-dong bell.
Occasionally Ricks includes dialogue leading into a speech, presumably to give context (see Appendix 36). When reading Ricks’s Oxford Book it is impossible to ignore that Shakespeare was a dramatist. None of the Oxford compilers explicitly states the purpose behind their anthology. Q comes nearest when he declares that he is collecting ‘the best’ from ‘the whole field of English Verse’.32 Implied in Q’s project is the work of reflecting the history and development of English verse. Gardner and Ricks, aware of the ‘official’ status that the anthology has achieved since 1900, wrestle with Q’s self- imposed exclusions of certain types of verse, adopt his chronological template but extend their scope a little. Not using Shakespeare is apparently not an option. All three Oxford books use more ‘poems’ by Shakespeare than any other poet, giving the impression that Shakespeare is the best poet in English, or the most important, or the most popular. While he is the most popular with the Oxford Book anthologists he is not as popular with the population at large. Shakespeare rated badly in the ‘democratic’ anthology The Nation’s Favourite Poems, a compilation derived from a poll conducted by a BBC television programme The Bookworm. The spin-off anthology contains the top one hundred poems as voted for by the programme’s viewers in order of
31 Line references are also occasionally provided (see Appendix 36). 32 Quiller-Couch, vii. 206 popularity.33 Kipling’s If came top and Shakespeare has just two entries in this anthology (or popularity chart): at number 36 is Sonnet 18 (‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’) and at number 84 is Sonnet 116 (‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds’). Shakespeare fared even worse in an earlier ‘democratic’ anthology based on the hundred most frequently requested poems on BBC Radio 4’s programme Poetry Please with only Sonnet 18 being included.34 These results reflect the popular assumption of what a ‘poem’ is, and suggest that nowadays most people consider Shakespeare a playwright rather than a poet. As Ralf Schneider notes ‘democratic’ anthologies demonstrate that ‘the popular canon maintains a distance from the “official canon”, that is, the canonicity accorded to literary works by professional critical judgement’.35 This highlights another purpose of anthologies, especially ‘standard’ works like the Oxford Books, assembled on the basis of professional critical judgement, and that is preservation. As Anna Stevenson puts it, ‘Anthologies are to poetry what museums are to painting’36 and connected with this is the anthology’s role in creating and changing the canon. All three anthologists perform this canonical function, although only Ricks seems aware of a duty to preserve, referring to his role as ‘anthologist of the unparagoned achievement that is English Poetry’.37 Ricks’s inclusion of more than just songs from Shakespeare’s plays reflected contemporary critical approaches to Shakespeare that stress performance and Shakespeare as a theatre practitioner. There is also a suggestion that Ricks felt a need to preserve the plays and save some ‘essential Shakespeare’, perhaps sensing that his readers would not be as familiar with the plays as early or mid-century readers, or that the plays’ place in the canon was less secure than formerly. Paradoxically, by presenting dramatic extracts as he does, Ricks makes no concessions to those unfamiliar with the plays. His ‘titles’ merely tell readers what play the extract is from and where it is to be found in that play; they fail to put the speech into context even when introductory dialogue is also given.38
33 The Nation’s Favourite Poems (London: BBC, 1996). 34 Poetry Please! (London: Dent/BBC, 1985). 35 Ralph Schneider, ‘Of Love, Cats and Football: Popular Anthologies in Britain Today – Between Culture and Commodity’ in Anthologies of British Poetry, eds., Barbara Korte et al., 289-307, 294/5 36 Anna Stevenson, ‘Why Palgrave Lives’ in Victorian Poetry, 37.2 (1999), 211-214, 211. 37 Ricks, xxxiii. 38 Compare the helpful scene-setting information in The Prince’s Choice, an anthology aiming to kindle an interest in Shakespeare’s plays in those coming to them for the first time. 207
Q’s Oxford Book of English Verse maintained the nineteenth century’s creation of Shakespeare the lyric poet and now placed him chronologically within the whole field of English poetry. Limiting himself to lyrical and epigrammatic poems and presenting all his Shakespeare extracts as discrete poems meant that he too created a Shakespeare who is the author of lyrics and (utterly heterosexual) love sonnets. Q inhabited an academic milieu and worked at a time when he might assume that all his readers, both the highly educated and the ‘common’ reader, would know Shakespeare’s plays and readily identify the extracts’ sources.39 Helen Gardner working on her Oxford Book between 1962 and 1972 broadly followed Q and created a similar poet Shakespeare. Q’s influence can still be seen today in anthologies like The Norton Anthology of Poetry which follows his method and also represents Shakespeare with a selection of songs, sonnets and The Phoenix and the Turtle.40 At the century’s end Ricks made Shakespeare a special case and preserved his plays as well as his poems in the 1999 Oxford Book of English Verse to create Shakespeare the poet/playwright.
II
This section focuses mainly on wartime anthologies that demonstrate different approaches and, in common with innumerable anthologies compiled throughout the century, create Shakespeares. The anthologies considered created a Shakespeare who is a lyric poet and/or philosopher and, in wartime especially, also a patriot and the quintessential Englishman. These wartime anthologies re-asserted Shakespeare’s nineteenth-century status not merely as national poet, but as the world’s greatest poet, philosophical thinker and provider of secular scripture, and used this Shakespeare to bolster national confidence, unity and patriotism and offer wisdom and solace in difficult times.
39 Readers educated beyond the national school leaving age and those with a limited formal education. See Murphy 2008 re. nineteenth-century working-class readers of Shakespeare. 40 The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th edn., edited by Margaret Ferguson et. al. (London: W.W, Norton & Co. Ltd, 2005). Kate Rumbold points out that The Norton Anthology of English Literature 8th edition, (2006), includes two Shakespeare plays, but this is a pedagogic source book and not an anthology of poetry. (Rumbold 2011, 101). 208
Patriotic First World War Anthologies At the start of the century, when the British Empire was at its zenith, several ‘patriotic’ anthologies used extracts from Shakespeare’s plays alongside poems by other writers and thereby claimed Shakespeare for the nation and the Empire. Extracts were invariably attributed but their sources rarely indicated, the anthologists generally offering extracts from Shakespeare’s texts as discrete poems or epigraphs. A typical example, English Patriotic Poetry, aimed to ‘trace the growth of the Patriotic Note in English Verse’ and encourage imperial patriotism. The preface shows it was intended for school use, suggesting that Empire Day celebrations ‘emphasize the need for an anthology of this sort’, and adding if ‘even a few of our children are led to honour their country in thought and deed, it will not have been compiled in vain’.41 This was a successful anthology with a second edition in 1912 and a reprint following the outbreak of war in 1914.42 Shakespeare joins Campbell, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Kipling and others as a patriotic poet. The anthology includes four predictable, frequently anthologised Shakespeare extracts: Henry V’s ‘Once more unto the breach’ exhortation (H5 4.3.17-67) and his speech before Agincourt (H5 4.3.17-67), most of John of Gaunt’s ‘This sceptr’d isle’ (R2 2.1.31- 68), and Cranmer’s prophecy (H8 5.5.17-55). Unusually, all are presented with speech prefixes as dramatic extracts. The start of the war saw the publication of several patriotic anthologies like Poems of the Great War, Songs and Sonnets for England in Wartime and The Fiery Cross, all of which packaged contemporary poems, inspired by the war, and sold them in aid of wartime charities.43 Others mixed contemporary and older poetry including Shakespeare, like The Country’s Call, which was intended to foster wartime patriotism throughout the British Empire.44 Its content ranged from Shakespeare and Milton to Hardy and Kipling, with most of the poems from
41 L. Goodwin Salt, ed., English Patriotic Poetry, 2nd edn.(Cambridge: CUP, 1912). 42 See ‘Edward Thomas, ‘Anthologies and Reprints’, Poetry and Drama, 2.4 (December 1914), 384- 386. 43 Poems of the Great War (London: Chatto & Windus, 1914); Songs and Sonnets for England in War Time, (London: John Lane, 1914) both in aid of The Prince of Wales’ National Relief Fund. Mabel C. Edwards and Mary Booth eds., The Fiery Cross. An Anthology (London: Grant Richards Ltd., 1915) in aid of the Red Cross Society. 44 E.B. and Marie Sargant, eds., The Country’s Call. A Short Selection of Patriotic Verse (London: Macmillan, 1914). This was sponsored by The Victoria League. The league formed in 1901 was the only predominantly female Edwardian imperialist propaganda society. See Eliza Reidi, ‘Women, Gender and the Promotion of the Empire: The Victoria League 1901-1914’, The Historical Journal, 45.3 (2002), 569-599. 209 nineteenth-century poets. It included ‘Rule Britannia’, ‘Hearts of Oak’ and Isaiah Chapter XLI, verses 1-10. The only Shakespeare extract, significantly placed first, is part of Gaunt’s ‘This sceptr’d isle ’ speech, here a discrete poem ‘This Dear, Dear Land’.45 These patriotic anthologies tended to be Anglo-centric, imperialist in sentiment and to look backward to historic battle glories. This is especially marked in Lord God of Battles (1914).46 Its content ranged from Shakespeare and Fletcher to predictable contemporary poems like Kipling’s ‘Recessional’, Newbolt’s ‘The Vigil’, Hardy’s ‘Song of the Soldiers’ and Bridges’ ‘Wake up, England’. The title is adapted from Henry V and the relevant lines (4.1.286-9) provide an epigraph O God of Battles! Steel my soldier’s hearts; Possess them not with fear; take from them now The sense of reck’ning, ere th’opposed numbers Pluck their hearts from them.
Its five Shakespeare extracts are, with one exception, presented as discrete poems. All have titles and are attributed without source details. Predictable choices are ‘Deus Adjutorium Nostrum’ the closing lines of King John (5.7.112-118), part of Gaunt’s speech (R2 2.1.40-50) titled ‘This Realm, This England’ and Henry V’s speech before Agincourt (H5 4.3.16-67) here a dramatic extract titled ‘Gentlemen in England Now A-bed’. Two unusual choices, albeit ‘appropriate’ for the time, were lines from 3Henry VI titled ‘France and England’: And having, France thy friend, thou shall not dread The scatter’d foe that hopes to rise again. (2.6.92-3)
and, under the title ‘Victory’, Richard III’s lines:
A thousand hearts are great within my bosom. Advance our standards! Set upon our foes! Our ancient world of courage, fair St George, Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons. Upon them! Victory sits on our helms! (R3 5.6.77-81)
Pro Patria (1915) targeted the schoolroom.47 The title-page motif incorporating the Union flag, the Royal Standard, St. George’s flag, an anchor and a cross with radiating beams of light behind it, blended symbols of Britain, Royalty, England, St George, naval power and God. Horace’s ‘dulce et decorum est pro patria
45 Attributed without source information. 46 A.E. Manning Foster, ed., Lord God of Battles. A War Anthology (London: Cope & Fenwick, 1914). in aid of The Prince of Wales’ Relief Fund. 47 Wilfred J. Halliday, ed., Pro Patria. A Book of Patriotic Verse (London: J.M. Dent, 1915). 210 mori’ provides the title-page epigram. A preface explains the anthology’s patriotic purpose: to collect ‘poetry which sings of the deeds of valour on the field of battle, of love of one’s country and the nobility of sacrifice […] a legacy to which the young of England are privileged heirs’. In the anthology the young may, read of those elements in our national character which have built a world- embracing Empire that scorns to sell its honour for petty bribes: they will see the greatness of their land has been evolved out of the self-sacrifice, the devotion to duty and the respect for the truth of her people, and they will be inspired to tread nobly, whatever the cost, in the footsteps of the heroes of yesterday.48
Alluded to obliquely, the war is a matter of national honour in which the young are encouraged to engage. Arranged chronologically, the anthology opens with old ballads and closes with contemporary poems inspired by the war and the National Anthems of the war-time allies. Many of the poems recount historic battle victories and famous heroes, for example Drayton’s ‘Ballad of Agincourt’ and Palgrave’s ‘Elizabeth at Tilbury’. This anthology represents Shakespeare as one in a line of patriotic poets with four extracts: Gaunt’s speech (R2 2.1.31-68) and the closing lines from King John ( 5.7.112-118) both titled ‘England’ and presented as ‘poems’; and Henry V’s speeches before Harfleur (H5 3.1.1-34) and Agincourt (H5 4.3.16- 67), presented as dramatic speeches, and titled ‘Harfleur’ and ‘The Feast of St. Crispin’ respectively.49All these anthologies, several of the anthologists women engaged in ‘war work’, created a Shakespeare for wartime: the poet behind a handful of patriotic poems.
The Shakespeare Tercentenary Observance, 1916
1916 marked the tercentenary of Shakespeare’s death. A pamphlet, the Shakespeare Tercentenary Observance in the Schools and other institutions, distributed to schools by the national Shakespeare Tercentenary Committee, reached a wide audience. It offered suggestions for celebrating the tercentenary including a template for a performed anthology and quotes so much Shakespeare that it is effectively an anthology, although it has not previously been considered as one.
48 Ibid., vii-vii. 49 Source details are lacking but notes at the end of the book indicated that the first extract is from Richard II and that the French were ‘totally defeated’ by the English at Agincourt. 211
An epigraph links England, the English language, Empire, Shakespeare and English literature:
CHILDREN BRAVE AND FREE OF THE GREAT MOTHER-TONGUE - AND YE SHALL BE LORDS OF AN EMPIRE WIDE AS SHAKE- SPEARE’S SOUL, SUBLIME AS MILTON’S IMMEMORIAL THEME AND RICH AS CHAUCER’S SPEECH, AND FAIR AS SPENSER’S DREAM.50
Shakespeare and the nation (represented by its leaders) are linked by listing the members of the Shakespeare Tercentenary Committee beneath Shakespeare’s coat of arms (page 3).51 England and Shakespeare are inextricably linked by the superimposition of Shakespeare’s coat of arms, the names of the principal male and female characters in his plays and the (unattributed) quotation: NEVER ANY- THING CAN BE AMISS WHEN SIMPLENESS AND DUTY TENDER IT 52 over a design of oak leaves and acorns, symbolising England, (pages 4-5). The ‘official’ ‘Programme Suggested by the Schools Sub- Committee and issued with the approval of the Shakespeare Tercentenary Committee’ for celebrating the tercentenary starts with a Bible reading ‘Let us now praise famous men’ ( Ecclesiasticus XLIV, verses 1-15), helpfully printed later. Singing ‘a Shakespeare song’ is next, that is, a song taken from one of Shakespeare’s plays. Several of the most commonly anthologised are printed with source details: ‘Orpheus with his lute’, ‘Where the bee sucks’, ‘It was a lover and his lass’, ‘Full fathom five’, ‘Who is Silvia?’, ‘Hark! hark! the lark’, ‘O mistress mine’, and ‘Come unto these yellow sands’. A ‘discourse on Shakespeare’ is then suggested, to be
50 Shakespeare Tercentenary Observance in the schools and other institutions (London, 1916), 2. 51 The committee comprised the King and Queen (Patrons), the Prime Minister, the Lord Mayor of London and Professor Israel Gollancz of King’s College, London (representing academia). 52 MND 5.1.82-3. 212 followed by ‘another Shakespeare song’, ‘scenes or passages from Shakespeare’, ‘another Shakespeare song’ and finally ‘God Save the King’. Israel Gollancz’s ‘Brief Annals of Shakespeare’ follows: a list of dates and events (actual and conjectured) in the life of Shakespeare and beyond. This obliquely links the spread of Shakespeare’s ‘sovereignty’ with the expansion of ‘English’ sovereignty through the (British) Empire when it asserts: 1616-1916: During three centuries Shakespeare’s fame has grown until his sovereignty has become well-nigh universal – England’s most cherished possession, shared and adored by all the world.53
Gollancz’s ‘Notes on Shakespeare the Patriot’ comprise the bulk of the pamphlet and provided schoolteachers with ample material for the ‘discourse on Shakespeare’. Shakespeare is described as a secular Christ when Gollancz writes, a mighty band of heralds, his forerunners in dramatic art, had prepared the way for the coming of the Master Poet who was to glorify the new born Elizabethan drama. His was the power to please and enrapture, and to instil into men’s hearts his manifold observations on the myriad problems of life and eternity.54
This Shakespeare ‘while conscious of his genius, did his work with gentle grace and modesty’ and touched the whole nation, being ‘destined so to use his gifts to reach all classes of his countrymen’.55 Shakespeare is also a paradigmatic patriot. Gollancz urged Shakespeare’s countrymen to recall the ‘lessons’ Shakespeare had left them, especially ‘how it behoves us as patriots to strive to play our part in war as in peace’. He argued that Shakespeare ‘taught the lessons of wisdom’, that his interest was ‘first and foremost’ in English history and ‘in the causes and effects that led up to the England of his day’. Gollancz claims that Shakespeare ‘cared no less for the speech of his native land than for its cherished history and its very soil’ and asserted: Shakespeare’s boundless love for his country is no mere poetic fervour; it is solidly based belief that English ideals make for righteousness, for freedom, for the recognition of human rights and liberties.56
Gollancz’s essay is packed with extracts from Shakespeare’s plays including those repeatedly found in the patriotic anthologies: Cranmer’s prophecy, the closing lines of King John, (part of) Gaunt’s ‘This sceptr’d isle’ speech, and eight extracts from
53 Observance,10. 54 Ibid., 12. 55 Ibid., 11. 56 Ibid., 21. 213
Henry V including parts of Henry’s prayer (4.1.287-9), his speech before Harfleur (3.1.17-25), and his speech before Agincourt (4.3.20-66). The pamphlet demonstrates in a few pages how Shakespeare, a source of wisdom, was made into the archetypal patriotic Englishman for wartime, binding patriotism, national and imperial unity, War, God, England, the English language and England’s glorious past. Patriotic anthologies repeatedly included two patriotic Shakespeare extracts that had already been transformed into standalone Shakespeare poems by anthologists: Henry V’s lines before Agincourt and Gaunt’s ‘This sceptr’d isle’ speech. Elizabeth Marsland identifies features that these Shakespeare ‘poems’ share with much First World War patriotic poetry.57 Britain, with no territory threatened, fought for ‘the Right’, for honour. All men are assumed to be willing to fight and die for their country. Combatants are fine young men, elevated to the status of heroes. To die for one’s country is to become immortal and the ‘fallen’ will be remembered for ever. There is subtle use of ‘us’ and ‘them’: ‘them’ rarely refers to the enemy who is ‘you’ or ‘he’ but rather to civilians, non-combatant Englishmen and women, whereas ‘us’ refers to the nation’s heroes, the soldiers. Language is often archaic and poetic; warfare described in medieval terms with references to drums, trumpets, swords and lances. Abstract nouns like liberty, freedom, peace, honour and ‘the right’ abound, as does the name England. The image of England, when referring to the terrain, is entirely rural, but in these poems ‘England’ does not represent a physical country, or the people or the culture but is an abstract concept combining all these elements and frequently personified.58 The Shakespeare ‘poems’ reflect these tropes which may explain their recurrent use. Anthologies typically present Henry’s speech in its entirety, occasionally as a dramatic extract, but usually as a ‘poem’. Henry V was widely regarded as Shakespeare’s ‘patriotic play’, as Gollancz describes it. Dealing with war and a victory against ‘fearful odds’, its wartime attraction is obvious. Gollancz thought that ‘Shakespeare gives us in the person of the King his ideal Patriot-Englishman, and the play rings out today as a trumpet call to all’.59 Critical interpretations of the play have changed, but this patriotic impression persists. In his Faber Book of War
57 Elizabeth A. Marsland, The Nation’s Cause (London: Routledge, 1991). 58 It is almost always ‘England’, the name often used loosely to refer to the British Isles. 59 Observance, 15. 214
Poetry Kenneth Baker uses the king’s speech in ‘The Patriotic Imperative’ section, commenting that ‘Shakespeare did much to fashion English patriotism, and Henry V’s address to his troops before Agincourt is still inspiring stuff’.60 In the play Henry speaks to a group of nobles who have wished for more soldiers, the English being outnumbered five to one. It is often assumed that Henry addresses the massed English army, since this is how the speech was staged in two influential films of the play: Branagh’s 1989 version and (to a lesser degree) Laurence Olivier’s 1944 film.61 Linguistically and thematically Henry’s speech shares features of the wartime ‘patriotic’ poems. The reward for fighting is ‘honour’ and immortality - ‘we in it shall be remembered’. That the soldiers are ready and willing to fight and die for their country is assumed, although this is interrogated elsewhere in the play. Those not involved will ‘think themselves accursed they were not here’. It uses the ‘we’ voice: ‘we few, we happy few, we band of brothers’. ‘We’ are the fighting men and ‘they’ are the ‘gentlemen in England now abed’. John of Gaunt’s speech, first anthologised in Englands Parnassus (1600), was usually cut to begin at ‘This Royal throne of kings’ and to end at either ‘This blessed plot, this earth this realm, this England’ or ‘This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land’. As such the context disappears and it is a ‘poem’ in praise of England as described by Gollancz: Love of England, the very soul of England, and all that makes it so endeared, was expressed by many Elizabethan poets, but no words ever uttered in praise of England excel the fervour of Shakespeare’s imperishable words from the lips of the dying John of Gaunt.62
In the lines usually anthologised, ‘England’ is an abstract concept mixing royalty (‘royal’, ‘throne’ ‘sceptred’, ‘kings’, ‘realm’, ‘majesty’), a rural landscape (‘demi- paradise’, ‘silver sea’, ‘Eden’, ‘earth’, ‘nature’, ‘blessed plot’), Christian religion (‘Christian service’, ‘sepulchre’, ‘Mary’s son’), ‘chivalry’ and war (‘fortress, ‘war’, ‘Mars’ ‘moat defensive’).
60 Kenneth Baker, ed., The Faber Book of War Poetry (London: Faber & Faber, 1996), 6. 61 In the most recent film of Henry V, in the BBC’s The Hollow Crown series (2012) Henry addresses a small group of nobles. 62 Observance, 21. 215
Shakespeare in Time of War and the Shakespeare Tercentenary Souvenir, 1916
Two anthologies also marking the 1916 tercentenary were Shakespeare in Time of War and the Shakespeare Tercentenary Souvenir. These comprised extracts from Shakespeare transformed into ‘noisy stuff’,63 to create a patriotic Shakespeare offering wisdom on the contemporary situation. Francis Colmer’s Shakespeare in Time of War contained ‘excerpts from the plays arranged with topical allusion’.64 For Colmer the plays were storehouses of Shakespeare’s observations on various aspects of the war. He was confident, for example, that Shakespeare would have been anti-German: for of all nations the Germans seemed to have aroused his dislike the most. He has not a good word to say for them, except in irony. To him they were for the most part cozeners, thieves and drunkards.65
Colmer’s method was similar to Bysshe’s in 1718: he took short quotations from Shakespeare’s plays and grouped them together to create long ‘poems’ under titles like ‘Battle of the Marne’, ‘Retreat from Mons’, ‘The Kaiser’, ‘Viscount Kitchener’, ‘Charlie Chaplin’, ‘Special Constables’, ‘Volunteer Defence Corps’, ‘Zeppelin Raids’ and ‘Early Closing and Liquor Legislation’. He divided the book into thematic sections with sub-headings that often quote Shakespeare, like ‘This Sceptr’d Isle, ‘Pomp and Circumstance, and ‘Merely Players’. Footnotes provide details of the source plays and act and scene references. Although the tercentenary occasioned the anthology it is more about the war and raising wartime morale than a celebration of Shakespeare. The preface describes Colmer’s Shakespeare: We have but to read his book to catch the inspiration of his spirit. His book is our national asset; and if at this time his memory is dear to us and we would do honour to his name, it would be well to read it over again and lay his words to heart that we may derive from it courage and endurance for the conflict.66
Shakespeare is a patriot:
63 Edward Thomas, ‘War Poetry’, Poetry and Drama 2.4 (December 1914), 341-345, 341. 64 Francis Colmer, ed., Shakespeare in Time of War (London: Smith Elder & Co., 1916). 65 Ibid., xxvi. 66 Ibid., xviii. ‘His book’ is presumably The Complete Works. 216
In nearly all his plays […] there shows forth ever and anon traces of that fervent love for his native land which amounted to the very adoration of her earth and all that stood or grew on it.67
Shakespeare is exactly what the nation (and her Empire) needs:
At this crisis of her fate, when the accents of patriotism and self-interest are so strangely intermingled, and when the fires of her old chivalry require to be blown to a white heat, how sorely does the country need the sound of a ringing voice that shall speak with the tongue of her children of old […].There is only one poet who has identified himself deeply with the nationality of our race and who has made himself the mouthpiece to interpret it in every mood and aspiration, who is himself, indeed, the typical Englishman. Our one and only national poet is William Shakespeare – national not only in an insular, but one might say in an imperial sense.68
Colmer’s Shakespeare is the National Poet, the Empire’s poet, a patriot and quintessential Englishman but overwhelmingly he is one who provides wisdom and inspiration for a country at war. What Colmer did in his anthology, Fred Askew took to extremes in his Shakespeare Tercentenary Souvenir.69 This slender anthology’s variable title suggests a confusion of aims. The cover title ‘Two Years of War. A Nation’s Psychology in Shakespeare’s Words’ surrounds a reproduction of the Chandos portrait. The title-page title is: ‘SHAKESPEARE / Tercentenary Souvenir/ ENGLAND’S/ THOUGHTS IN/ SHAKESPEARE’S/ WORDS’ and the title above Askew’s preface (‘Prelude’) is ‘England’s Thoughts in/Shakespeare’s Words’. For Askew, Shakespeare expresses what is in England’s mind in 1916. His ‘Prelude’ declares: The main object of these quotations is to catalogue the thoughts uppermost in the minds of Englishmen during the great world war of 1914 onwards.
Each salient thought of sentiment is crystallized and perpetuated through the medium of what is taken to be an apt Shakespearean quotation applicable to the idea –albeit originally used in some other connection.
The language of Shakespeare is far too sublime and telling to be ignored by those who are seeking some verbal expression for the nation’s soul in its hour of agony.
67 Ibid. 68 Ibid., xvii. 69 Fred. Askew, Shakespeare Tercentenary Souvenir (Lowestoft: Flood & Sons Ltd, 1916). 217
The quotations are taken almost at random from the plays and historical drama of the great world genius whose thought we can rightly claim as our very own.
“With Shakespeare we love our country
That Askew’s dominant concern is the war and not Shakespeare is demonstrated in his division of the anthology into ‘Shakespeare War Souvenir’ (pp.5-48); ‘Diary of War Events’ (pp.50-77); ‘Prophecies for Third year of War’ (pp.78-79) and ‘Shakespeare on the Great Advance’ (pp.79-80).70 The ‘Diary of War Events’ is exactly that; after an internal title page, ‘TWO YEARS OF WAR/DIARY OF WAR/ EVENTS/ AUGUST 1914-AUGUST 1916’, the events of the war are listed under year and month headings. The other sections follow a different format. Around a thousand short extracts are used, few longer than four lines and the source of none is given. Askew appears to have worked methodically through some of Shakespeare’s plays as extracts appear in clusters. For example, pages 19-25 take most of their content from Hamlet, with page 23 almost entirely from Act 2 scene 3 (plus a few extracts from Act 5 scene 1), and extracts on pages 79-80 are taken from the first three scenes in Macbeth. Extracts are attached to a thought pertaining to the war with an ‘appropriate’ title as in GOING OFF TO FIGHT When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning or in rain? When the hurlyburly’s done, When the battle’s lost or won.
Colmer and Askew’s Shakespeare was a patriotic philosopher transcending time and place to provide timeless thoughts and wisdom on contemporary concerns.
This England, 1915 Edward Thomas considered the contemporary poetry in patriotic wartime anthologies ‘noisy stuff’ with ‘more in it of the shouting of a rhetorician, reciter or politician’ and decided ‘it is apparently not easy to make a good book of patriotic
70 A reference to the Battle of the Somme (July-November 1916). 218 poems’.71 Two wartime anthologies compiled by important poets both avoid ‘noisy stuff’ and take a significantly different approach. Robert Bridges was Poet Laureate when his anthology The Spirit of Man appeared; when Edward Thomas’ anthology This England was published in 1915, he was an established essayist but since his death in 1917, has been increasingly admired as a poet. This England, an anthology of prose and poetry, was patriotic in Thomas’ subtler understanding of that concept. In a contemporary essay ‘England’, Thomas attempted to convey not the ‘active patriotism of comparison and aggression’ but a quiet patriotism: ‘a question of existence’, a feeling the ‘whole land is suddenly home’.72 In another essay ‘This England’, he described English country walks with Robert Frost: ‘we talked, of flowers, childhood, Shakespeare, England, the war – or we looked at a far horizon’.73 Expressing his own patriotic emotions and his decision to enlist he ends that essay: Then one evening a new moon made a difference […] either I had never loved England, or I had loved it foolishly, aesthetically, like a slave, not having realised it was not mine unless I were willing and prepared to die rather than leave it as Belgian women and old men and children had left their country. Something I had omitted. Something I felt, had to be done before I could look again composedly at English landscape, at the elms, the poplars about the horses, at the purple-headed wood-betony with two pairs of dark leaves on a stiff stem, who stood sentinel among the grasses or bracken by the hedge-side or wood’s-edge. What he stood sentinel for I did not know, any more than what I had got to do.74
This England celebrates a golden rural England of the past, the tone is that of his essays in The Heart of England (1906), the essays ‘England’ and ‘This England’, and his poems included in This England (under the pseudonym Edward Eastaway): ‘Haymaking’ and ‘Manor Farm’. For Thomas the text that filled him ‘with a sense of England’ is not Shakespearean but Walton’s The Compleat Angler.75 This England, nevertheless, contains nine Shakespeare extracts, more than from any other writer,
71 Edward Thomas, (i)‘War Poetry’; and, (ii) ‘Anthologies and Reprints’ in Poetry and Drama, 2.4. (Dec. 1914). (i) 341-345, 341, (ii) 384-386, 384. 72 Edward Thomas, ‘England’ in The Last Sheaf. Essays by Edward Thomas (London: Jonathan Cape, 1928), 91-111, 104 and 108. ‘England’, published posthumously, was almost certainly written before Thomas enlisted in the army in 1915. 73 ‘This England’ in The Last Sheaf, 212-221, 218. 74 Ibid., 221 Thomas enlisted in July 1915 and was killed at Arras on 9 April 1917. It is said he had a copy of Shakespeare’s Sonnets in his breast pocket which survived the deadly shell blast. 75 Thomas, ‘England’ 109. 219 and we sense that Shakespeare and the war were constantly in his mind. The title may be inspired by the final lines of King John or Gaunt’s speech. Thomas’ prefatory ‘Note’ refers to the Shakespeare song that epitomised for him the ‘Englishness’ of English poetry: This is an anthology from the work of English writers rather strictly so called. Building around a few English poems like ‘When icicles hang by the wall’ - excluding professedly patriotic writing because it is generally bad and because indirect praise is sweeter and more profound, - never aiming at what a committee from Great Britain and Ireland might call complete, - I wished to make a book as full of English character and country as an egg is of meat. If I have reminded others, as I did myself continually, of some of the echoes called up by the name England, I am satisfied.76
This England does not allude directly to the war but Thomas’ anthology is a clear response to it and an expression of his distinct personal patriotism. The material in This England is organised by subject-matter into seven categories: ‘This England’; ‘Merry England’; ‘Her Sweet Corners’; ‘London’; ‘Abroad and Home Again’; ‘Great Ones’; ‘The Vital Commoners’. Extracts are given titles if lacking authorial ones, attributed and, if not discrete texts, the source is given. Thomas chooses some unusual Shakespearean extracts (see Appendix 37). While generally retaining speech prefixes and stage directions, he applies titles as though the extracts were poems, positioning them between the drama and poetry. There are three Shakespearean extracts in ‘Merry England’ which deals with joviality, sports, eating and drinking: a dialogue ‘Rosalind and Jaques’ from As You Like It (4.1.1-27), ‘Winter’ from Love’s Labour’s Lost, and ‘Sack’, Falstaff’s speech from 2 Henry IV (4.2.84-121). ‘Her Sweet Corners’ includes topics like wild flowers, trees, ‘Arden’, elves, and cottage gardens. Here is ‘Elves’, Prospero’s speech from The Tempest (4.3.33-56) and ‘Herne the Hunter’, from The Merry Wives of Windsor (4.4.27-39). ‘The Great Ones’ comprises extracts about celebrated people and events from English history and includes extracts found in other patriotic collections. It opens with Blake’s ‘A War Song to Englishmen’ (‘Prepare, prepare the iron helm of war’) and includes Wordsworth’s ‘Lines on the Expected Invasion 1803’, George Peele’s ‘O ten time treble Happy men that fight/ Under the Cross of Christ and England’s Queen’ and a contemporary report of Elizabeth I’s Armada speech at Tilbury. Here is ‘Henry the Fifth,’ the king’s speech before Agincourt and, less
76 Edward Thomas, This England (London: OUP, 1915). 220 predictably, ‘Falstaff’ (‘You rogue there’s lime in this sack too’ 1H4 2.5.123-134). ‘The Vital Commoners’ uses ‘King’s Sons’ from Cymbeline: ‘But up to the mountains’ (3.3.73-98) and ‘On Kings’ extracted from Williams’ conversation with the disguised king on the eve of Agincourt in Henry V: ‘But if the cause be not good’ (4.1.133-145). Jonathan Bate discusses This England, contrasting Thomas’ Shakespeare with the patriotic ‘Shakespeare’ purveyed by Gollancz and others. He argues that Thomas’ greater use of Falstaff than Henry V reveals an allegiance to a long tradition of dissenting Englishness: There is nothing here of kings and queens, empire and war. Edward Thomas’ idea of England was rooted in place – his anthology has a preponderance of rural writing, but also a section on London – and in home.77 and, ‘insofar as the name of England means a history, it means a defence of liberty’78. Bate points out that contrary to the expectation established by the title, Thomas used neither of the ‘This England’ speeches from King John or Richard II. He argues that ‘The Vital Commoners’ shows that, for Thomas, England is defined by its people, not its monarchs, by greasy Joan and not Queen Elizabeth. Bate perhaps overstates his case since ‘The Great Ones’ section includes extracts relating to monarchs, war and ‘famous’ men even if some are commoners, but ‘empire’ is absent. Confronting the inclusion of ‘the king’s pep talk’ before Agincourt, Bate suggests that ‘Falstaff’ on the facing page destabilises the king’s speech, and that it is not presented in isolation as Williams’ ‘unanswerable arguments’ are also included, but he does not note that nearly forty pages separated these extracts. Thomas’ patriotism is quieter although he shares the patriotic wartime poets’ concept of ‘England’; essentially rural (his ‘London’ section is very short), somewhere in the past and his own poems that are included paint a backward- looking still-life of rural England. ‘The Great Ones’ section, however, is a patriotic catalogue of uplifting examples of English character prevailing in time of war. In searching for English ‘character’ Thomas uses Shakespeare. Five of the seven Shakespeare extracts are primarily ‘character’ portraits and, I suggest, Williams’ speech is there to demonstrate native good sense rather than destabilise Henry V’s speech. The extracts from The Tempest and The Merry Wives depict myth and legend
77 Bate, 202. 78 Ibid. 221 just as Thomas’ selections from folk songs and a book on Shropshire folklore do. Thomas’ patriotic Shakespeare participates in the creation of Thomas’ England, the England being fought for, through his dramatic characters as exempla of laudable English character.
The Spirit of Man, 1916 In 1914 Robert Bridges was asked to compile an anthology by the publisher Charles Longman whose younger son had been killed early in the war. The idea was for a book of consolatory pieces, ‘the sort of stuff that people in his sorrow would like to read’.79 Jonathan Bate describes Bridges’ wartime poetry as ‘patriotism of the crudest most bellicose kind’; his anthology, The Spirit of Man, is nothing like this.80 First published in January 1916, there were nine editions in various formats between 1916 and 1918, numerous post-war and Second World War editions (see Appendix 38.I). The most recent edition I have traced is dated 1973. This anthology is significant because of its compiler, its immediate and enduring market success and its unconventional methodology. The anthology is divided into four ‘books’ each covering several topics (see Appendix 38). Additional page headings that work almost as titles, indicate the subject of the extracts below to direct interpretation. Extracts are numbered, untitled and unattributed. This arrangement enhanced the anthology’s consolatory purpose: each extract stood on an equal footing and concentration on the sentiment expressed and intertextual reading was encouraged. The anthology was unpaginated perhaps for the same reason. Bridges explained his decision not to attribute:
First then, the reader is invited to bathe rather than to fish in these waters: that is to say, the several pieces are to be read in context; and it is for this reason that no titles nor names of authors are inserted in the text, because they would distract the attention and lead away the thought and even overrule consideration.81
An index at the back of the book identifies authors and source texts and offers some commentary. Bridges’ ‘Preface to the Index’ conceded that the identity of the author is important to readers and suggested that ‘If the reader will put the book-marker
79 Letter to Lionel Muirhead, 4 December 1914, Letters, 654 80 Bate, 196; Robert Bridges, The Spirit of Man (London: Longmans & Co., 1916). 81 Spirit of Man, Preface. 222 between those pages of the Index which correspond with the pages of the text that he is reading, he will readily find the information he wants’. Bridges used a mixture of prose extracts, short poems and extracts from long poems. He was not afraid to re-punctuate, omit lines, mix his own translations with those of others, and to juxtapose non-consecutive extracts from a text, boasting ‘My plan of omitting any lines that I do not like has a wonderful effect on a good many well-known poems’.82 His aim was to demonstrate that ‘spirituality is the basis and foundation of human life’. Anne Ferry considers Bridges an anthologist casting himself as an author in the tradition of Palgrave. She argues: The title page announces a performance that is very serious indeed, on a grand scale, for a universal audience […]. Below the title a vignette shows the hand of God stretched out to Michelangelo’s Adam. At the same time the unusual calligraphic design of the type face looks like handwriting, as if the book were a record of private reading. Altogether the title page, by its unconventional aspect, presents the anthology as a personal act of creation, which is what its very short preface – otherwise given over to a public denunciation of Prussia – claims for it. It is described there as “the work of one mind at one time”.83
De la Mare’s review recognised Bridges as the ‘author’ of his anthology. He praised its arrangement: it was no ‘mere succession of self-contained poems and fragments of prose’ but ordered to bring out their ‘interrelation and intercommunication one with another’, comparing the content to a ‘host of candles’ that illumine ‘the mind that set them in their place’. De la Mare argued that perusal of the anthology demonstrates ‘the indefatigable pains of the artist to express an idea and an ideal with the world’s masterpieces for his material’.84 The Spirit of Man contains four hundred and forty-nine passages from a hundred and eight writers. Thirty-seven extracts from Shakespeare (see Appendix 38) make him the second most extracted writer and the only case where Bridges takes from plays.85 The anthology reflects Bridges’ views on Shakespeare: he is the world’s ‘greatest poet and dramatist’ but prevented by theatrical conditions of his day from being the ‘best artist’ and his narrative poems are ‘unreadable’.86 Bridges
82 Letter to C. Henry Daniel, 10 July 1915, Letters, 675. 83 Ferry 2001, 61-2. 84 Quoted by Ferry 2001, 64. 85 Other frequently used writers are Shelley (43), Milton (30), Keats (22), Wordsworth (16), Blake (16), the French philosopher Amiel (21) and R.W. Dixon (15). 86 See Bridges’ essay ‘On the Influence of the Audience’ (1907) and letter to J.W. Mackail, 29 March 1900, Letters, 575. 223 uses fifteen sonnets, one poem from The Passionate Pilgrim and twenty extracts from the plays but neither of the narrative poems. Songs comprise over half of the play extracts. These and the other play extracts are presented as poems (minus speech prefixes and intervening dialogue) except for the extract from King John (No. 234) which places two extracts from different scenes consecutively to create a ‘poem’, using speech prefixes and stage directions to make sense. Bridges’ Shakespeare extracts are mostly conventional choices - although his selection from King John and 3Henry VI (No.13) is more original. Unusual choices in an anthology of this kind are short epigrammatic extracts, more common in commonplace book anthologies. Examples are two lines from Sonnet 11, ‘Joy of Battle’ (No.428), four lines from Sonnet 21, ‘The Rainbow’(No. 139), a line from Richard II, ‘The Saintly Company’ (No.440) and three (mid-speech) lines from Hamlet,‘The Rational Soul’(No.300). The Shakespeare extracts were chosen and manipulated to fit Bridges’ topical framework as much as for their intrinsic merit. For example, the page heading above ‘Our revels now are ended’ (Temp. 4.1.146- 163) is ‘Dismay’. This is incongruous because the extract is not about ‘dismay’; it arises because Bridges chose to start with ‘You do look my son, in a moved sort/ As if you were dismay’d: be cheerful sir’, which leads into the more famous lines. This extract is preceded by Keats’ La Belle Dame Sans Merci, under page heading ‘Sadness’, and followed by Blake’s ‘Ah sunflower weary of time’, under page heading ‘Weariness’. Elsewhere page headings ‘Elfland’ and ‘Fairy Flights’ above two of Ariel’s songs perpetuate the idea that these are fairy lyrics. Despite The Spirit of Man’s unusual methodology and specific aim, Shakespeare is once again recreated as a lyric poet and philosopher, his poems and aphorisms included for their sentiment or to lift the spirit.
The Times Broadsheets for Soldiers and Sailors, 1915
A short-lived and neglected anthology, The Times Broadsheets for Soldiers and Sailors, is however significant because of its innovative format and quasi- official status. Conceived by Lionel Curtis and launched in August 1915, the broadsheets contained passages from ‘the great English writers’ to provide servicemen with ‘literature in a new and portable form’. The idea was ‘to supply the soldier with something to read, not merely when he is in reserve or in hospital, but
224 when he is actually in the firing line’ and would be glad of something ‘to distract his mind’. The Broadsheets were sold for one penny, in sets of six sheets, roughly A4 size, in an illustrated envelope. The thin paper sheets could be ‘enclosed in an envelope, form part of a letter from home and reach the soldier or sailor wherever letters reach him’, ‘without adding to the cost of postage’. 87 The Broadsheets were also sold in bulk to be distributed via battalion commanders and by organisations like the YMCA. Thirty sets of six Broadsheets (180 sheets) were issued between August and December 1915. Initially selling well, after six weeks sales tailed off and the broadsheets were discontinued at the end of 1915.88 In 1928 and 1929 selections from the sheets were published in book form as ‘The Times’ Book of Broadsheets and A Second Book of Broadsheets. The preface to the first book claims ‘There was never any question of the popularity of the broadsheets among those for whom they were originally put together’, The Times’ archives containing ‘many treasured letters of gratitude’ from readers.89 The Broadsheets aimed to provide solace as well as distraction. In 1928 Curtis recalled the circumstances of the broadsheets’ conception. In early August 1915 some young officers on leave had been staying with him: Morris began reading aloud great passages of English Literature taken from my shelves. As he read we all felt as though a great wind was sweeping away all the cloud of gloom and the sunlight was breaking through. One of the officers said, ‘What a splendid thing it would be if we could have stuff like this in the trenches’.90
Sir Walter Raleigh was enlisted to lend his name and advise Bruce Richardson (editor of The Times Literary Supplement) on the selection of material. Raleigh proposed this would comprise ‘the best passages, grave and gay from English verse and prose’ and be ‘as various as possible’. Lord Derby criticised the selections in a memo to Richardson dated 27 September 1915: ‘I think there is no doubt that we
87 The Times, August 30, 1915, p.7, column G and The Times August 31, 1915, p.7 column E. 88 See John Simons, ‘The Times Broadsheets: A Canon for the Front’, Literature and History, 11.2 (2002), 39-51. 89 George Dawson, ed., ‘The Times’ Book of Broadsheets(London: Methuen & Co., 1928), xv. A Second Book of Broadsheets (London: Methuen & Co., 1929). 90 Letter from Curtis to Geoffrey Dawson (editor of The Times) 28 March 1928 in the News International Archive, quoted by Simons, 40. 225 have been a bit above the heads of the average soldier whose existence we refuse to admit’.91 Richardson agreed:
I had quite come to the conclusion that the first selection was a little too stiff, and as a matter of fact the later series already contains literature of a much lighter kind. The subjects were chosen, as you know, by Sir Walter Raleigh, whose views of the private soldier’s mental digestion are perhaps rather sanguine.92
John Simons argues that, in the context of the Wellington House Meeting’s communique and the spate of anti-German ‘patriotic’ writing it spawned, Derby’s ‘true objections lay not so much in the sophistication of the selections as in the difficulty of aligning them with the current ideas about the role of literature in the conduct of war and propaganda’.93 Simons suggests that Raleigh’s notion of literature as consolation in itself, as inspiration and succour for the soldiers, and his implicit refusal to become involved in the anti-German excesses of official propaganda led to the demise of the Broadsheets rather than the failure of the selections to appeal to the common soldier. The Broadsheets displayed that subtle form of propaganda in which English literature becomes a unifying force, expressing and representing the freedoms, heritage and culture that the war was being fought to preserve. Raleigh acknowledged this: ‘I confess I like the idea of this library; apart from its main use, it seems to me to symbolize the cause for which we are fighting’. He continued: We believe in freedom, and we mean to keep it. We will fight as long as we can stand, so the world may still be a place where spontaneous and playful persons, especially women and children may lead a life free from fear. There is no better expression of freedom, in all its senses, than English literature. I can almost imagine an intelligent German officer trembling and growing pale when he finds it in our trenches. Here is the explanation, which he has so long sought in vain, of why it is our brothers from all the English speaking world are at one with us, heart and soul. Here is our inheritance; why should
91 In the News International Archive, quoted by Simons, 43. 92 Ibid. 93 Simons, 43. The Wellington House Meeting of well-known men of letters at the Ministry of Information on 2 August 1914 issued a declaration, printed in The Times on 18 September 1914, that included the following statements: Whatever the world destiny of Germany may be, we in Great Britain are ourselves conscious of a destiny and a duty. That destiny and duty, alike for us and all the English-speaking races, call upon us to uphold the rule of common justice between civilised peoples, to defend the rights of small nations, and to maintain the free and law-abiding ideals against the rule of ‘Blood and Iron’ and the domination of the whole continent by a military caste. 226
they give it up for the bribes of a foreign drill sergeant? By this token we shall conquer.94
George Gordon’s later review of the anthology in book form recognised this propaganda aim: The time, the purpose, the audience […] all fired the search, and what was searched for is plain: nothing less in fact than the spirit of England or so much of that spirit and the humours of the soil as the best written words can soak up and hold. And that England, I need hardly say, is not the England of foreigners or the England of politics, but that better England, the Old and the Merry, of every man in his humour, which somehow staggers on, and which was then, the greater part of it in temporary exile in the field.
Gordon concurs with Raleigh’s belief that there is no better expression of freedom than English literature and asserts ‘it is the English creed, and the British soldier when he saw these Broadsheets, recognized it’.95 Modern literature is well represented in the Broadsheets but the bulk of the material is earlier. The passages chosen frequently describe an idealised rural England of an indeterminate past, the ‘Old’ and ‘Merry’ England, or the lively but quirky London of Dickens; they relate to England’s past military and naval victories and her great characters. Thus there are passages from Cobbett’s Rural Rides, The Compleat Angler, Gilbert White’s The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne and Hardy’s rustics. The tone is often reminiscent of Thomas’ This England, also published in 1915. Shakespeare is the writer most used with thirteen extracts.96 Appendix 40 lists the content of sheets 1-6 to give a flavour of the content and also lists the extracts from Shakespeare in the whole series. An anthology in a multi-layered and unstable printed form, The Times Broadsheets extended the boundaries of the anthology format. Single sheets containing more than one extract constituted mini-anthologies. Examples are No. 8 ‘Four Poems on the War’ ( ‘Kipling’s ‘For all we have and are’, Grenfell’s Into Battle, Binyon’s To Women and Chesterton’s The Wife of Flanders), and No.89 ‘Sleep’ (an extract from Bernal Diaz’s Conquest of New Spain, Sidney’s sonnet ‘Come, Sleep! O sleep the certain knot of peace’, Sackville’s ‘By him lay heavy sleep, the cousin of death’; the King’s speech from 2 Henry IV ‘How many of my
94 ‘Sir Walter Raleigh on the Scheme’, The Times, 30 August 1915, p.7, column G. 95 George Gordon, ‘ “The Times” Book of Broadsheets’,[ Review], The Times, 4 October 1928, p.17,column D. 96 Simons mistakenly claims Dickens to be the most used (12 passages). 227 poorest subjects’, a short verse by ‘L.S.’ and an extract from Don Quixote ‘Sancho Panza on Sleep’). The content of single sheet anthologies is linked by subject-matter (as in ‘Sleep’), by genre or by author or a category of author. Examples are No. 9 ‘Three Essays by Bacon’, No. 171 ‘Some Irish Poets and No. 16 ‘Songs from Shakespeare’. Each set of six sheets with their envelope also constituted a loose leaf anthology. Generally the material on each sheet in a set is not linked but the final set (Nos. 175-180), a Christmas Set, is linked by this topic. The single sheet format was conceived as ephemeral. Raleigh imagined the sheets having the double purpose of ‘refreshing a soldier’s mind and lighting his pipe’, yet he also described them as constituting ‘a fine library’,97 expressing the tension between the ephemeral format and original purpose and the desire to stabilise and collect the sheets to create a conventional anthology. The preface to ‘The Times’ Book of Broadsheets quotes a letter written in December 1915 from ‘A Hospital, Somewhere in France’ that highlights this: ‘It would be interesting’ it runs, ‘to have all the broadsheets, bound in one volume, as an example of English literature’s beguilement, comfort and sustainment for the warrior. Such a volume, I suppose cannot be published, but if ever I get back and am able to preserve them (and yet how can I when every decent motive dictates that I must pass them on to others?) I shall see that mine are stitched into a cover.’98
It was believed that only three bound collections of broadsheets had survived and the book claimed both historical interest and to fulfil the letter’s ambition. The preface to A Second Book of Broadsheets notes that, since publication of the first book, ‘a good deal’ of evidence had come forward as to the retention by ‘many people’ of surviving sheets. As several bound sets of the broadsheets survive in libraries, it would seem that, despite their original format and purpose, the sheets were not invariably treated as disposable literature. The broadsheets were revived at the request of the War Office mid-way through the Second World War, when significant numbers of British troops were stationed abroad. The first set was published in November 1943 and the series continued until August 1946 with a total of thirty-three sets of eight sheets (264) appearing regularly at roughly monthly intervals. These broadsheets were supplied in
97 Letter to The Times, 30 August 1915. 98 Broadsheets 1928, xi. 228 bulk to the War Office and distributed through the Army Education Service.99 I have been unable to locate any original Second World War broadsheets but all the sheets (264) were printed in publication order in a book in 1948 as The Times Broadsheets. 264 passages from English Literature chosen by The Times and brought together in One Volume.100 An attempt to sell sheets directly to the public in July 1944, with profits going to charity seems to have failed,101 although the preface to the 1948 book claims that public sales were discontinued because it had been argued that they infringed a wartime ban on the publication of new periodicals.102 The book was another commercial exploitation by the newspaper of the collected material and one of a number of anthologies using material originally printed in The Times published at around the same time. According to the book’s preface, in 1943 ‘high command’ ‘recognized a wider responsibility of its own than in the previous war [and] now saw reason to take a fatherly and organised interest in the cultivation of the soldier’s mind’.103 Extracts for the second series of broadsheets were apparently selected on the principles originally set down by Raleigh in 1915, that is, material ‘good of its kind’. The 1948 preface indicates that the propaganda remained the same: The passages chosen were ancient and modern, grave and gay, in prose or verse, instructive, seductive or merely entertaining, but all calculated to open for soldiers far from home some window upon the rich landscape of the inheritance they were fighting to defend.104
In 1915 Raleigh had believed that, exposed to the best writing, the ordinary soldier would respond to it positively (prompting Derby’s criticism of his chosen extracts). This idealistic notion that the English shared a literature with widespread appeal was again assumed in the 1940s and is made clear in the book’s preface which quotes Quiller-Couch:
99 According to Simons the sheets were circulated as follows: October 1943-August 1944, 7,000 sets per month; September 1944 –July 1945, 10,000 sets per month; August 1945 –May 1946, 12,600 sets per month; April – July 1946, 10,000 sets per month (51). 100 The Times Broadsheets (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1948). 101 See Simons, 47. 102 Broadsheets 1948,viii. 103 Ibid.,viii. 104 Ibid.,viii. 229
Literature is not, and should not be, the preserve of any priesthood. To write English, so as to make literature, may be hard. But English Literature is not a mystery, not a Professor’s Kitchen.105
As John Simons notes, the extracts in the later series differ from the first with very little overlap.106 The Second World War series used a greater proportion of modern pieces, most not ‘literary’ but taken from topographical, philosophical, historical and biographical writing. Simons sees the educational aim of the series coming through clearly in the frequent short introductory prefaces that set the scene and occasionally guide the reader. Shakespeare, the patriotic Englishman, is used once more to celebrate all aspects of England and Englishness and further the broadsheets’ underlying propaganda. As in the first, he was the most used author in the second series with ten extracts (see Appendix 40), followed by Dickens, Milton and Johnson with five extracts each.107 Proportionately the use of Shakespeare was less in the later series: he was used in thirteen of 180 sheets in the first series and in ten of 264 sheets in the second series. Both series of broadsheets use anthology favourites: songs from Shakespeare’s plays. Henry V’s Agincourt speech is in the first series although other patriotic extracts are absent.108 Passages from plays are presented as dramatic extracts in both series. Some passages are chosen for their poetic beauty such as the passages from 3 Henry VI, The Merchant of Venice and Romeo and Juliet (in the first series). Other extracts in the first series appear to be chosen to highlight English characters like Falstaff and Dogberry or admirable character traits like Kent’s steadfast loyalty in King Lear. Harking back to an idealised England of the past and linking Shakespeare with that England, with English patriotism and ideals is, perhaps, more marked in the second series. Sheet 32 ‘Shakespeare Historian’ exemplifies this. An extract from John Richard Green’s History of the English People (1874) describes how Shakespeare’s ‘historical plays […] have done more than all the works of English historians to nourish in the minds of Englishmen a love of and reverence for their country’s past’. Green, writing against the background of The Irish Question in the 1870s, identified parallels between this and the Elizabethan
105 Ibid., quoting from sheet No.202 which prints an extract from Quiller-Couch’s On the Art of Reading (1920). 106 Simons, 47-49. 107 Simons and the index in the 1948 book both mistakenly indicate nine Shakespeare extracts. 108 The closing lines from King John are quoted in Sheet 32, second series. 230 struggle for ‘national existence’ and unity reflected in Shakespeare’s King John. Parallels with Britain’s (‘England’s’) predicament in the 1940s are apparent when Green writes, Again a foreign power was threatening England […] what he [Shakespeare] sang was the duty of patriotism, the grandeur of loyalty, the freedom of England from Pope or Spaniard, its safety within its “water-walled bulwark”, if only its national union was secure. And now that the nation was at one […] he could thrill his hearers with the proud words that sum up the work of Elizabeth
This England never did, nor never shall Lie at the foot of a proud conqueror But when it first did help to wound itself. Now these her princes are come home again, Come the three corners of the world in arms And we shall shock them. Naught shall make us rue If England to itself do rest but true. 109
In similar vein, Sheet 93 prints a long extract from Coriolanus comprising Menenius’ ‘pretty tale’ justifying the maintenance of society’s hierarchy in the face of rebellion. Shakespeare extracts are used elsewhere in the second series to demonstrate admirable English character, for example, ‘Henry the Fifth’s Wooing’ and Adam’s words from As You Like It, ‘Though I look old’ .110 ‘A Royal Christening’( Sheet 144) from Henry VIII is an obvious reminder of England’s past and the ‘golden age’ of Elizabeth I.111 Two of the second series extracts are more heavily edited than most: ‘Dinner in the Forest’ (Sheet 117) from As You Like It and ‘O coward Conscience’ (Sheet 121) from Richard III.112 In the passage(s) from As You Like It cuts allow it to tell Orlando and Adam’s ‘story’ without interruption, highlighting the Duke’s compassion whilst also allowing space for another anthology favourite, Jacques’s ‘All the world’s a stage’ speech, here printed in context and not as a discrete poem. Cutting, repositioning the extracts from Richard III and adding introductory passages to set the scene let the reader concentrate on the murder of the young princes and Richard’s subsequent remorse. The broadsheets use Shakespeare more frequently than other writers but he does not dominate. In them he is a poet and a dramatist since both dramatic extracts
109 Broadsheets 1948, 61. 110 Ibid., 8/9, 28. 111 Ibid.,281-283. 112 Ibid., 228-230, 236-238. 231 and ‘poems’ are used. The broadsheets use his texts in their cumulative propaganda and recreate the patriot Shakespeare, but as spokesman for English character and virtue rather than provider of rousing patriotic ‘poems’.
Word from England, 1940
Second World War anthologies further emphasised Shakespeare the lyric poet, the philosophical patriot and the quintessential Englishman. Two typical anthologies, direct descendants of First World War collections, are Word from England and England: An Anthology.113 The identity of the anthologist is significant, lending both a semi-official status. Word from England, described in its epilogue as ‘an Anthology for the militia which developed into a message for the troops abroad’, was compiled by Lieutenant General Sir Tom Bridges, nephew of Robert Bridges and a famous hero of 1914- 1918. Compiled ‘for the King’s forces’, Bridges felt the anthology might be welcomed by servicemen as a change from a diet of novels, magazines and communiques, ‘distract from the monotony of routine and inaction’ and ‘sustain and hearten them during moments of crisis and peril’.114 Its tone veers between strident patriotism and Thomas’ pastoral patriotism, most of the choices from Shakespeare falling within the latter category. Bridges’ selection principles echoed those of his uncle:
I have adopted the simple principle of selecting poems and passages which appealed to me personally, in boyhood or manhood, or from which through long years of soldiering, whether in peacetime or in the tented field, I derived solace and inspiration.115
Bridges died before his anthology was printed and it fell to Ian Hay (pen-name of Major John Hay Beith) to provide a preface. Hay was a soldier, novelist and playwright and between 1938 and 1941 Director of Public Relations in the War Office. The book’s long title and the status of both compiler and preface writer almost make this an ‘official’ anthology. Hay’s preface displays subtle propaganda
113 Other examples are James Agate, Speak for England: an anthology of prose and poetry for the forces (London: Hutchinson, 1939) and Martin Gilkes, Tribute to England (London: Hutchinson, 1939). 114 Tom Bridges, Word from England An Anthology of Prose and Verse compiled for the King’s Forces by Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Bridges (London: English Universities Press, 1940), v, 246. 115 Ibid. vii. 232 by indicating what ‘the king’s forces’ are fighting for. An anecdote reminiscent of Thomas’ Adelstrop, makes the point. It tells of a party of American soldiers travelling by train through England during the First World War. They see ‘the green fields, winding streams, the square little church towers of an English countryside in summer’ and decide ‘this little island of yours’ is worth fighting for. Hay adds ‘We are at War and in these pages we are brought face to face with the full realization of the greatness and splendour of our state’. To emphasis the message he quotes from Kipling’s ‘For all we have and all we are’ which ends, ‘Who stands if freedom fall? | Who dies if England live?’116 Word from England uses predominantly nineteenth-century verse and prose extracts. The final poem, Newbolt’s The Toy Band: A Song of the Great Retreat, celebrating a wartime exploit by Bridges in 1914, was added as a posthumous tribute. Contents, listed in a table, are organised thematically under sections like ‘Times and Seasons’, ‘Native Land’, ‘Into Battle’. The anthology includes numerous Shakespeare texts (see Appendix 39), usually presenting them as poems, though often untitled. All are attributed and the source text is usually given although not detailed line references. Most of the Shakespeare texts are familiar anthology pieces: songs from plays and familiar speeches like Lorenzo’s ‘How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank’ or the opening lines from Twelfth Night. A more unusual, arguably inexplicable, choice in the ‘And then the Lover’ section is the dialogue between Tubal and Shylock from The Merchant of Venice. As well as reflecting the idealised rural England being fought for, some of the Shakespeare extracts transcend time and relate to the contemporary soldier’s predicament, notably those in the sections ‘Into Battle’and ‘Courage and Endeavour’ (see Appendix 39). A selection of poems from Word from England was published in 1940 in a smaller format, without the paratextual material, as Word from Home.117 The Shakespeare extracts retained in this version (see Appendix 39) include the ‘patriotic’ lines from King John and Henry V’s speech before Harfleur. This anthology was intended as a pocket-book for soldiers in action. The Shakespeares created in both versions of the anthology are the lyric poet and the philosopher providing wartime solace tinged with wisdom.
116 Ibid. v-vi. 117 Tom Bridges, Word from Home (London: English Universities Press,1940). 233
England: An anthology, 1944
England: An Anthology ‘compiled by a Committee of the English Association’ was published for that organisation in 1944 and intended for use in schools.118 The English Association was founded in 1906 to develop English Studies in schools and as the compiler it lends this anthology a semi-official status. England also expresses Edward Thomas’ quiet patriotism, celebrating a rural England somewhere in the past. Harold Nicholson’s preface makes explicit ideas that Thomas’ anthology alluded to: The present collection, […] is an attempt […] to indicate how diverse and yet how similar have been the impression which English poets of many centuries have derived from English life and character. It is an example, on the one hand, of the continuity of English literature, and on the other of its variety. For, although the instruments which form the vast orchestra of English poetry are diverse both in strength and form, the main themes are strangely recurrent and one can detect throughout the centuries a resonant continuity of tone.
Nicholson noted that ‘we’ (the English) have a notion of an ‘ideal national character’ which is a ‘continuous conception’ and English poetry forms a ‘vast organic growth’ with a ‘similarity of tone and feeling … from Chaucer to Bridges’.119 When Nicolson wrote ‘Our poetry is both the product and the creator of our national character’ with its ‘underlying sense of moral purpose, a recurrent note of modesty, a frequent tendency to understatement’ and ‘the deep voice of responsibility’ and ‘responsibility for the freedom of other men’,120 he re-asserted the notion shared by many English anthologists: English poetry is a single cohesive entity with a thread running through it, it is the best poetry in the world and expresses the English character, which is the best of characters. Nicholson then quoted Wordsworth’s, We must be free or die, who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spoke; the faith and morals hold Which Milton held.121
That the war and these notions underlie this anthology is emphasised by an epigraph, taken from words written in 1942 by Jan Smuts. Smuts, writing about the Blitz, commented that the most precious thing about England had not been lost:
118 England: An Anthology (London: Macmillan & Co, 1944). 119 Ibid. v-vi. 120 Ibid. x. 121 Ibid.,x. 234
The soul remains […] that inward glory, that splendour of the spirit, which has shone over this land from the soul of its people, and has been a beacon of light, to the oppressed and downtrodden peoples in this new martyrdom of Man.122
England is organised thematically into sections: ‘Countryside’, ‘Town’, ‘Sport’, ‘War’, ‘Reflection’, ‘Art: Poets, Painting, Architecture’, ‘Sculpture’, ‘Music’, ‘Character’. The prologue is Binyon’s ‘Inheritance’, a celebration of the English landscape, and the epilogue is Chesterton’s ‘The English Graves’; two poems bookending the anthology and connecting the joys of the English countryside and the patriotism of laying down one’s life for one’s country. John of Gaunt’s ‘poem’ ‘This England’, beginning ‘This royal throne of kings’ is the only Shakespeare extract in the anthology, but it is located at the heart of the book whose title is taken from it. Nicholson’s prefatory quotation from Wordsworth’s sonnet ensured that Shakespeare was very much present in the anthology not just as the patriotic poet of ‘This England’ but as a seminal figure in English values.
Other Men’s Flowers, 1944 Field Marshall Viscount Wavell was another soldier-anthologist during the Second World War. An advocate and exponent of reciting poetry from memory, Wavell believed poetry could not be properly appreciated until memorised. His anthology, taking its title Other Men’s Flowers from Montaigne, collects poetry he had once had by heart and which he deemed ‘capable of being declaimed’. 123 I consider this rather eccentric collection because it was an unlikely success, widely read and rarely out of print since first published in 1944. The anthology is organised topically into sections: ‘Music, Mystery and Magic’, ‘Good Fighting’, ‘Love and All That’, ‘The Call of the Wild’, ‘Conversation Pieces’, ‘The Lighter Side’, ‘Hymns of Hate’,’ Ragbag’, and ‘Last Post’. Wavell’s Introduction and Notes to each section illustrate that the war is constantly in his mind. Many of the poems are from the nineteenth and early-twentieth century: Wavell’s ‘old favourites’. There is not much Shakespeare. Standalone poems, the song ‘O Mistress Mine’ and two sonnets: ‘My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the
122 Ibid. 1. 123 A.P. Wavell, Other Men’s Flowers (London: Jonathan Cape, 1944), 17. See Ian Jack, ‘Way over Yonder’, The Guardian , Review, 1 October 2005, 15, for an account of the anthology’s genesis. 235 sun’ (130) and ‘An expense of spirit in a waste of shame’(129) appear in ‘Love and All That’, and ‘Full many a glorious morning’(Sonnet 33) is in ‘Music, Mystery and Magic’. More unexpectedly in ‘Good Fighting’ Hotspur’s lines from 1Henry IV, ‘Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dressed’, (1.3.29-63) appear, as a poem ‘The Staff Officer’. Wavell’s note interprets Hotspur’s speech as depicting the antagonism between the fighting officer and the staff officer, something he claims to have experienced from both sides. In this anthology Shakespeare appears among many others as a (lyric) poet Wavell had got by heart.
III Shakespeare Anthologies in Performance.
Performed anthologies of Shakespeare have a long history, with countless examples, amateur and professional, and performances of Shakespeare’s Sonnets form their own sub-group.124 The one-man show Shakespeare anthology has attracted many leading actors: Ellen Terry presented Shakespeare’s Heroines in the first two decades of the twentieth century, Frank Benson staged Shakespeare’s War Cry during the First World War, John Gielgud performed The Ages of Man sporadically between 1957 and 1966) and Ian McKellen’s Acting Shakespeare was staged on occasions between 1977 and 1990. More recently Michael Pennington’s Sweet William was performed between 2007 and 2012, Roger Rees’ What You Will was staged in 2012 and Simon Callow’s performance of Jonathan Bate’s script The Man from Stratford, later retitled Being Shakespeare, was staged between 2010 and 2012. These anthologies often demonstrate the interplay between print, electronically recorded and live performance and their range of formats greatly
124 An unusual unstructured one-man performed anthology based on the Shakespeare’s sonnets is Will Sutton’s Why I Love Shakespeare Sutton memorised the sonnets and performed them on demand as randomly requested by his audience. See < www.iloveshakespeare.com>. Shakespeare’s Globe annual ‘Sonnet Walks’, organised to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday, are another unusual anthology format. Performances of the Sonnets by a range of actors with lines of verse visible as subtitles have been made available recently by Touch Press as an iPad app and also as a DVD. See
125 George Rylands, The Ages of Man (London;Toronto: Heineman, 1939). 126 Michael Pennington, Sweet William: Twenty Thousand Hours with Shakespeare (London: Nick Hern Books, 2012). 127 HRH The Prince of Wales, The Prince’s Choice,(London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995). Hodder Headline Audiobooks, 1995: 2 CD set ISBN 1-85998-519-X; 4 cassette set ISBN 1-85998- 149. 128See J.C. Trewin, Benson and the Bensonians (London: Berrie & Rockcliff, 1960), 208-211 and The Era, 17 January 1917, 14. 237 entertain, provide solace and boost patriotic feeling during wartime. The programmes for it and the Observance in schools endure as templates for celebrating Shakespeare and are comparable to the programme for the 1981 Stratford-upon- Avon Poetry Festival, to take just one example (see Appendix 42).
Shakespeare Tercentenary Celebration, Calais, 2 and 3 May 1916. The soldiers’ ‘Shakespeare Tercentenary Celebration’ was performed, behind the lines, in the YMCA Cinema Hut on the British Army Base, No.1 Camp, Calais on May 2 and 3, 1916, the same dates as the ‘official’ London based celebrations. Evidence of this event, a fragile four-page programme, survives in the British Library and is transcribed in Appendix 43.129 This performed anthology comprised an amateur concert party. Programmes for similar entertainments kept in the Imperial War Museum are often hand-written and cheaply duplicated; suggesting impromptu light hearted revues, but this programme is carefully printed, indicative of a more prestigious event. It was in aid of a charity, The Star and Garter Home for Disabled Soldiers and Sailors, all the military participants were officers and the performance was patronised by the camp’s ‘top brass’ and local dignitaries. Costumes and wigs were hired from a London theatrical costumier. The complexity of the material suggests that a fair amount of rehearsal must have been required. This was certainly not an impromptu entertainment.
The anthology began with ‘Scenes from “Twelfth Night” ’, concentrating on the comic sub-plot. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century madrigals and songs in contemporary settings followed and also two country dances from Playford’s Dancing Master (1660). Four Shakespeare songs with music by Arne and Purcell were performed next. All were anthology favourites: ‘When daisies pied’, ‘Under the greenwood tree’, ‘Come unto these yellow sands’ and ‘Full fathom five’. The celebration continued with two sixteenth-century songs by Thomas Morley and then ‘It was a lover and his lass’ to music by Edward German. The singers were accompanied by piano, two violins and flute and piccolo. ‘Scenes from “King Henry V” followed this musical interlude. These included Henry’s rallying speech before Harfleur, but Henry’s other patriotic speeches were not used, the other scenes being those involving the French princess. The availability of female performers possibly
129 Shelfmark 1875.b.1 (78) 238 influenced the selection.130 The celebration concluded with more ‘Shakespeare songs’, again anthology favourites: ‘Come away death’, ‘O Mistress Mine’, ‘Blow, blow thou winter wind’, and ‘Orpheus with his lute’ and, finally, ‘Sigh no more ladies’ and ‘You spotted snakes’ both in late-eighteenth-century settings. The programme emphasised Shakespearean songs and comedy. Appropriate songs were songs by Shakespeare and songs written, more or less, in his lifetime. Most were performed to music from that time, recalling the ‘golden age’ of Elizabeth. Proximity to the Front may have steered the compiler(s) of this performed anthology towards lighter material and to avoid the bellicose patriotic sentiment that might be drawn from other Shakespeare texts. Consequently the Shakespeare created in the soldiers’ performed anthology was both lyric poet and comic dramatist.
This Sceptred Isle, 1940
Academic and literary critic George Wilson Knight’s This Sceptred Isle. Shakespeare’s Message for England at War was both a performed and printed anthology published during the Second World War and an overt piece of patriotic propaganda. Knight, like Colmer and Askew, applied extracts from Shakespeare’s plays if they were Shakespeare’s ‘own words’, to which ‘England must always return in times of peril’.131 Knight also used the anthology to promulgate his theories of kingship and nationhood. In it he re-created Shakespeare the philosopher, the ‘voice of England’ and source of prophetic wisdom and solace, to support his ideas. The anthology closes:
The war has awakened England, awakened the world, to its own futurity, and if we are not to slip back miserably into old failures, we need something bigger than ourselves, to which we can go for wisdom and power; something which is nevertheless our own deepest and most royal selfhood, as men and women, as a nation; something that speaks to us not alone of our historic past but, prophetically, of that higher destiny which we serve; something which we shall find in Shakespeare, and in Shakespeare alone – the voice of England. 132
This Sceptred Isle was first performed as a ‘lecture recital’ in the summer of 1940, when the country lay under the threat of imminent invasion. Extracts from Shakespeare were linked by Knight’s commentary to create the performed
130 The cast included a number of members of the (women’s) First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (F.A.N.Y.s), and, judging by the surnames, some local women. 131 G. Wilson Knight, This Sceptred Isle (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1940), 1. 132 Ibid., 34-5. 239 anthology. Knight’s ‘Foreword’ says that the anthology was performed at the People’s National Theatre,133 and repeated in Cheltenham and at The Poetry Society in London. Elsewhere he writes: Lecture–recitals of the Shakespearian Statement were given during both 1940 and 1941 in London, in collaboration with Miss Nancy Price at the Tavistock Theatre, to The Poetry Society and at the Institut Français and The Polish Hearth; also at Cheltenham and Torquay (reviewed in The Herald and Express, Torquay 17 January 1941) and to The University College of the South West of England, Exeter. These recitals in which acting was interspersed with lecture-commentary, culminated in my production of The Sceptred Isle, under the patronage of Lord Queenborough as president of the Royal Society of George and of Sir Archibald Flower.134
On 21-26 July 1941 the stage version (mentioned above) was performed at the Westminster Theatre with the participation of the actor Henry Ainley. A reviewer commented: The idea of bringing together passages from Shakespeare serving as messages and exhortations to England at war was timely … [Knight had] linked up the excerpts by means of an interesting and effective commentary.135
The printed version of the anthology, a thirty-five page booklet, published in 1940, has a pugnacious Britannia on the cover, brandishing a clenched right fist. The epigraph is Wordsworth’s ‘We must be free or die who speak the tongue/ That Shakespeare spake’. Knight’s preliminary observations stress the need for national unity, comparing the contemporary situation with Elizabeth I’s time when Englishmen ‘first became really conscious of their national unity’. He finds that Shakespeare had ‘a very clear sense of a compulsion laid on England not only to attain, and maintain unity, but to be, in a deeper way, true to herself’’. Knight advised reading aloud ‘some of Shakespeare’s mighty passages’ in ‘hard days’ and letting ‘his golden phrases burn deep into our minds and souls’ since ‘like this, Shakespeare’s poetry has a quite surprising effect. One lives for a few minutes its superb assurance’.136 Knight was much concerned with kingship as it is explored in Shakespeare’s plays. Like Gollancz, he found Henry V ‘pretty nearly Shakespeare’s ideal
133 The Tavistock Little Theatre, Tavistock Square, London. 134 G. Wilson Knight, Appendix A, The Sovereign Flower (London: Methuen, 1958). 135 The Stage, 24 July 1941, 4. 136 Sceptred, 1-2. 240
Englishman: brave, humorous, deeply religious and a born leader’. He invites his audience/readers to notice Shakespeare’s ‘vivid feeling for essential royalty’ it being ‘something we have lost but must regain.’137 The anthology has four sections: ‘What England is’, ‘How England should act’, ‘What England must oppose’ and ’What England stands for’. Knight’s commentary relates often quite long extracts from the plays to the wartime situation. Many are those used in ‘patriotic’ anthologies: Gaunt’s speech, Henry V’s speeches, Cranmer’s ‘prophecy’ and the closing lines from King John. The less predictable choices reflect the development of his arguments concerning kingship and the nature of Englishness. Appendix 44 lists the extracts used. Knight developed his ideas further in The Olive and the Sword (1944). Here his language became more extreme, linking England, religion, Englishness and Shakespeare: We need expect no messiah but we might, at this hour, turn to Shakespeare, a national prophet if ever there was one, concerned deeply with the royal soul of England. That royalty has direct Christian and chivalric attitudes. Shakespeare’s life might be characterised as expanding, through a series of great plays, the one central legend of Saint George and the Dragon. Let us face and accept our destiny in the name of both Shakespeare and Saint George, the patron saint of our literature and nation.138
He continued to promote his ideas in wartime lectures and radio broadcasts. They resurfaced in A Royal Propaganda written in 1956, a typewritten manuscript of which is in the British Library.139 This was originally intended to be an introduction to ‘the inclusion of The Olive and the Sword in The Sovereign Flower in revised form under a changed title’.140 In fact only the concluding section appears in The Sovereign Flower as Appendix C. Pasted in the manuscript is a copy of a 1941 This Sceptred Isle programme and in the essay Knight mentions the 1941 performances. He says that This Sceptred Isle was originally ‘a compact and rather metaphysical section on the British “idea” intended for what was later published as Christ and Nietzsche in 1948’.141 He acknowledges the nature of This Sceptred Isle and describes how, on his return to England from America early in 1940, he ‘decided to split off the British section of the book and expand it in popular style as a deliberate
137 Ibid. 2. 138 G. Wilson Knight, The Olive and the Sword (London: OUP, 1944), 3. 139 Shelfmark 11768.f.13. 140 Ibid., 2. 141 Ibid., 2/3. 241 piece of literary propaganda’.142 Towards the end of Propaganda Knight comments ‘[t]his, then is what I was doing throughout my war-time labours: using Shakespeare to define the meaning of the Crown for us today’.143 Though Knight refers to Shakespeare’s ‘golden passages’ and poetry it is his thoughts that interest him; the Shakespeare his anthology creates is a blend of philosopher and paradigmatic English patriot.
IV
Prince’s and Poet’s Choices
The identity of the anthologist, often significant, became more so in the twentieth century. A Pamphlet against Anthologies disdainfully listed five classes of anthologist: ‘irresponsible enthusiasts’ often acting in the name of a cause; ‘minor poets, disguised sometimes as college professors’; professional critics; publishers; and, ‘poets with a reputation’ which their publishers are anxious to use ‘to offset the poor returns their individual volumes of poetry usually bring in’.144 The classes overlap and the first group can be expanded to include famous people, but they remain categories that readily apply to modern anthologies.
The Prince’s Choice, 1995 The Prince’s Choice, was a selection from Shakespeare chosen and introduced by The Prince of Wales. Why the heir to the throne would want to publish a ‘personal’ anthology of extracts from Shakespeare, grace it with an introduction and, in the audio-book, a personal appearance, is an intriguing question which led Terence Hawkes to consider it a politically motivated attempt by the Prince to co-opt Shakespeare in support of the monarchy.145 I suggest the prince was an ‘irresponsible enthusiast’ acting ‘in the name of a cause’ and that ‘his’ book demonstrates how an
142 Ibid., 2/3. 143 Ibid., 65. 144 Graves and Riding, 59-60. 145 Terence Hawkes, ‘The Prince’s Choice’, Style: Essays on Renaissance and Restoration Literature and Culture in memory of Harriett Hawkins (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2005), 267-278, 268. 242 anthology can create a Shakespeare and use Shakespeare in a network of mutual exploitation for political, social, cultural and commercial ends. The Prince’s Choice was published simultaneously in print and as an audio-book with CD and cassette versions. The booklet accompanying the CD contains the following extract from an interview with the actor Robert Stephens: The Prince of Wales came to see me playing Falstaff and he told me afterwards how much he regretted never having the time to sit down and read the plays. So the idea struck me that I could record some scenes from Shakespeare privately and send a tape to him for Christmas. For various reasons I wasn’t able to do anything about it but when I was discussing my autobiography with Hodder, I mentioned the Shakespeare ideas to them and they were very keen to turn the project into an audio book. The Prince agreed and so I spent a weekend with Eric Anderson, now Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, but once the Prince’s English master. We worked through the plays with Eric guiding me towards the scenes and characters which His Royal Highness most enjoyed and we divided them all into various categories. On balance, I think we’ve made a very good choice and given a well-balanced flavour of the plays – tragical – comical – historical – pastoral as Polonious says.
I then sat down with the director Glyn Dearman and we cast the various roles.146 I was very keen to work with my son Toby and when word got round everybody wanted to be in it. There were even people ringing from abroad to offer their services. I suppose that our greatest delight has been to persuade Prince Charles to play Hal to my Falstaff in one of the scenes from Henry IV Part One. I had performed a bit of Falstaff at a reception at Buckingham Palace and when I sat next to the prince at dinner, I asked him why he hadn’t joined me for the excerpt and so I was delighted that he felt able to act a bit this time.
It’s been a marvellous experience to record these pieces – the greatest fun. Some parts such as Falstaff and King Lear I had played quite recently but others such as Macbeth had always passed me by although I’d always wanted to have a go. The joy of audio, of course, is that you don’t have to learn lines or worry about the make up or costume.
Stephens revealed that the Prince’s ‘choice’ was actually Robert Stephens’ and Eric Anderson’s choice. The genesis of the anthology is alluded to in the dust jacket blurb which says extracts were ‘selected in conjunction with Sir Robert Stephens, one of our finest Shakespearian actors, and Dr Eric Anderson, Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford’. Prince Charles lent his name to this project and participated in the audio version, but neither the idea for the anthology nor the
146 Dearman was a veteran BBC radio drama producer. 243 selection of extracts appears to have originated with him. Appendix 45 lists the extracts used. In the interview, Robert Stephens attempted to enhance his social standing by describing a close relationship with Prince Charles. He sought cultural and professional cachet through his significant role in the production of the anthology, taking a credit as Executive Producer of the audio version and, along with his son Toby Stephens, claiming a large number of the leading parts on the recording.147 Stephens’ fellow collaborator, Eric Anderson is the antithesis of the flamboyant self- publicising actor. Unlike the Prince and Stephens, Anderson almost disappears from the project apart from the two references mentioned, but traces of his influence infuse the anthology. Anderson is an establishment figure and loyal servant to the Royal Family. He taught Prince Charles English at Gordonstoun and was subsequently headmaster at several leading private-sector schools. He served as Rector of Lincoln College Oxford between 1994 and 2000 and as Provost of Eton College (a Crown appointment) between 2000 and 2009. Anderson’s involvement in ‘Shakespearean voluntary work’ is wide. He has participated in The Prince’s Teaching Institute,148 is a Life Trustee of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and with his wife (herself an Honorary Emeritus Governor of the RSC) he is both a Patron of the RSC and a member of the RSC International Council. Anderson is an outspoken champion of independent schools, selective education, and critical of the comprehensive school system and what he regards as a lowering of standards, views shared by Prince Charles.149 Commercial profit surely motivated Hodder & Stoughton. The Prince’s Choice was an irresistible publishing coup, exploiting two money-spinning English icons: Shakespeare and The Royal Family. Charles Mountbatten-Windsor’s selection from Shakespeare would hold little interest were it not for his rank, and the publishers stress the Prince’s participation. The publisher’s paratexts show that for them (and probably potential
147 See Appendix 45 for cast. 148 A charitable organisation instituted by The Prince of Wales with the aim of improving education in state schools. See
Fig. 5. Dust jacket The Prince’s Choice.
245 purchasers) the anthologist’s identity was more important than the content. The dust jacket has fifteen written and pictorial references to the Prince and eight references to Shakespeare. The front depicts golden Prince of Wales’ feathers atop ‘The Prince’s Choice’, taking up almost half the page. The remainder of the full title almost fills the bottom half of the cover with a small portrait of Shakespeare tucked underneath it. On the back Shakespeare is replaced with a barcode and ISBN details, but the Prince’s feathers remain and there is a large photograph of a smiling Prince of Wales wearing headphones and a quotation: I hope this anthology may remind its readers of the delights of Shakespeare and inspire some of them to re-read the plays, or better still to see them again on stage.
This juxtaposition indicates these are the Prince’s words, actually the final sentence from his audio-book introduction; words which echo Palgrave’s and Q’s anthological aims: to teach ‘those indifferent to the Poets to love them, and those who love them to love them more’ and ‘to serve those who already love poetry and to implant that love in some young minds not yet initiated’ respectively. Inside the jacket’s front flap the Prince’s words are repeated and we learn that he is the President of the Royal Shakespeare Company, presumably to suggest his authority on matters Shakespearean. The paratexts here indicate the nature of the content and its division into categories ‘that reflect many of the Prince’s own interests’; the catergories are ‘Extraordinary People and Exceptional Language’, ‘All Sorts and Conditions of Men’, ‘Humour’, ‘The Darker Side’, ‘Public Life and Leadership’, ‘The Country’ and ‘Music and Acting’. The blurb indicates that the selection was made ‘in conjunction with Sir Robert Stephens, one of our finest Shakespearian actors, and Dr. Eric Anderson, Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford’, taking every opportunity to give their full titles to indicate their cultural authority regarding Shakespeare. The epithet ‘Shakespearian’ lends an actor gravitas and Anderson’s association with Oxford University suggests scholarship. The jacket’s back inside flap lists the book’s contents and indicates that the anthology is also available on cassette and CD ‘performed by an outstanding cast including HRH The Prince of Wales’. On the dark blue cloth covers of the book itself Shakespeare is almost non- existent outside the title on the spine. The front is simply embellished with gold Prince of Wales’ feathers, the back is unadorned and the spine bears the Prince’s
246 feathers, the full title and the publisher’s name. Inside the book white space is generous: there are inner title pages, numerous blank pages between sections and, occasionally between extracts, all of which is suggestive of a luxury product appropriate for a royal anthologist. Of 144 pages, a third of these (48) are either blank or contain no text derived from Shakespeare. The front of the inlay card of the audio-book formats broadly follow the design of the book’s jacket adding cast and technical credits. Significantly, in the US, the inlay card for the CD audio-book replaced the portrait of Shakespeare with one of the prince. The photograph of the prince used in all formats shows him in headphones, apparently in the midst of recording his part, emphasising the publishers’ (or Robert Stephens’) biggest coup. Within the book there is no escape from The Prince of Wales. The Introduction is personal in tone and ‘signed’ by him with a reproduction of his signature. In the audio versions the prince is even more present because his distinctive voice introduces the anthology as a whole and each of the sections, and, he is one of the actors playing Hal in an extract from 1 Henry IV. His audio script, however, is taken largely from the book anthology’s text. Initially this suggests a high level of participation by the Prince in the creation of the anthology but that evaporates when it is realised that the text of his Introduction and the epigraphs to the anthology’s sections, prominent by being surrounded with white space, are extracts from earlier speeches or writings by the Prince. The introduction uses part of the his Annual Shakespeare Birthday Lecture given in Stratford-upon-Avon on 21 April 1991 and ‘Extraordinary People and Exceptional Language’ takes an extract from his speech given at the Thomas Cranmer Schools Prize presentation on 19 December 1989. Passages from the Introduction are re-cycled as epigraphs to ‘All Sorts and Conditions of Men’. Extracts from the Prince’s speech at the 350th Anniversary of Harvard University in 1986 and his ‘Thought for the Day’ on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme marking the 50th Anniversary of VE Day (7 May 1995) are used as epigraphs for ‘The Darker Side’. Passages from his 1991 Shakespeare Birthday Lecture are epigraphs for ‘Public Life and Leadership’ and ‘Music and Acting’,150 and an extract from the Prince’s book Highgrove. Portrait of an Estate
150 The text of most of these speeches is available on the Prince of Wales’ website
151 Published in London by Chapman in 1993. 152 On Diana’s side there was Robert Morton’s ‘unauthorised’ Diana Her True Story (London: O’Mara, 1992) followed by his Diana Her New Life (London: O’Mara, 1994). A transcript of the Panorama interview is available at < www.bbc.co.uk/politics97/diana/panorama/html>. For Charles there was Jonathan Dimbleby’s The Prince of Wales A Biography (London: Littlebrown, 1994), itself promoted in Dimbleby’s television documentary Charles. The Private Man the Public Role broadcast 29 June 1994. This included an interview in which Charles admitted committing adultery after his marriage had “irretrievably broken down”. 153 Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent, November 4th 1995. 154 Glenda Jackson is quoted by Diane Hofkins in ‘Princely pickings proffer the best Will in the world’, TES 10 November 1995. Glyn Dearman is quoted in Sutcliffe’s Independent review. 155 Hodder & Stoughton have apparently erased it from memory. In a telephone call (July 2008) to their marketing department I was told they have no record of the title. 248
The Prince’s Choice uses one sonnet and extracts from nineteen plays, those in the playable canon and frequently set for public examinations in schools. A disproportionate number are taken from the second cycle of history plays. The choice appears to have been based on plays which (according to Anderson) Prince Charles most enjoyed at school, in which Robert and Toby Stephens had recently appeared, and those which the RSC had staged in the years since Prince Charles had become their president. The RSC staged Henry IV in 1991 (with Stephens as Falstaff), As You Like It and The Winter’s Tale in 1992, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, The Tempest and King Lear in 1993 (with Stephens as Lear), Henry V and Coriolanus in 1994 (with Toby Stephens as Coriolanus), Twelfth Night in 1994 and Richard III in 1995. Prince Charles’ Introduction indicates that he studied Julius Caesar at O-Level and had a small part in a school production of Henry V, and his biographers reveal that he played the title role in a school production of Macbeth. Another influence may have been the Prince’s admiration for the actor Kenneth Branagh; he says he was ‘spellbound’ by Branagh’s portrayal of the king in Henry V (RSC 1984) and had seen Branagh’s film version of the play ‘at least three times’.156 The Prince’s Choice presents dramatic extracts (apart from Sonnet 60) which is not surprising given that one of the anthologists was an actor and Anderson’s, Stephens’ and the Prince’s links with the RSC. Robert Stephens’ interview (quoted above) also indicated that the anthology was originally conceived as an audio format. The choices are an actor’s rather than a reader’s. The book version makes clear that the passages are taken from plays: each is headed with the play’s title, the act and scene are indicated, speech prefixes are used and a brief introductory passage sets the scene assisting readers unfamiliar with the play. The audio format demonstrates in itself that the extracts are from plays and the accompanying booklet contains the source information, prints the book’s introductory passage and a cast list. Line references are not given in either format, so when cuts are made (indicated by three dots in the book) they are not always evident. The audio-book listener, who does not use the booklet, knows he is listening to something from a play but not which play
156 Prince’s Choice, 2. Prince Charles was patron of Branagh’s Renaissance Theatre Company , active between 1987 and 1994, during which time it staged Twelfth Night, Much Ado, As You Like It, Hamlet, Lear and the Dream. Branagh discussed being Prince of Wales with Prince Charles in preparation for playing Henry for the RSC. See Branagh’s autobiography Beginning (London: Chatto & Windus, 1989). 249 or, perhaps, who is speaking, or the context. Listening with an eye on the booklet he knows what play, who is speaking and has a rough idea of location and what is happening in the play at that point, but the extract is shaped by the booklet’s prefatory information, the actors’ and director’s interpretation and the sound effects and mood music used. Additional framing devices are the category section in which the audio-extract is placed and the Prince’s introduction to that extract (See Appendix 45). The book format frees the reader from the actors’ and director’s input but he is still influenced by the anthologist’s input: section titles and epigraphs, the introductory passage to each extract and the cuts. To illustrate the anthologist’s influence I consider the extracts from the first ‘Gloucestershire’ scene in 2 Henry IV, used in ‘All Sorts and Conditions of Men’.157 The book’s inner title-page for the section has this epigraph: All human life really is there, with an extraordinary range and subtlety of characterisation, of historical setting, of place.
Prince Charles delivers the following introduction in the audio format:
Time and again in Shakespeare’s characters we recognise elements of ourselves. Shakespeare has that ability to draw characters so universal that we find them alive and around us today, every day of our lives. Shakespeare was a consummate technician and psychologist, with a remarkable ability to understand what makes us all what we are. Here are all sorts and conditions of men.
The extract starts at the beginning of the scene and proceeds visually and aurally as if were a complete scene. In fact there is a short cut between lines 50 to 80 and a longer excision between lines 85 to 187. The ‘scene’ ends at line 216, cutting the remainder of the scene. The book indicates the first two omissions with three dots but this suggests that the speaker has tailed-off mid-sentence. In the second instance, I am glad to see you well, good Master Robert Shallow … Come I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry dinner. I am glad to see you by my troth, Master Shallow, over a hundred lines are cut. The listener is completely unaware of these omissions. Excised are Bardoph, Falstaff’s page and the cynical exploitation of ‘other sorts and conditions of men’: the hapless recruits. Despite the introduction’s description of Falstaff as the Prince’s ‘disreputable boon companion’ and reference to him passing through Gloucestershire recruiting as he goes, a sanitised Falstaff is presented. Out
157 2H4 3.2 250 of context, heavily cut, prefaced and located where it is, Shakespeare’s text is manipulated to illustrate three sentimental old men, to demonstrate Shakespeare’s creation of ‘characters’. The dust jacket described the content of The Prince’s Choice as ‘fresh and original’ but the TES reviewer considered it ‘predictable’. In fact it mixes anthology favourites and some less anthologised passages. There is ‘All the world’s a stage’ and ‘This royal throne of kings’, but no songs from the plays. The Prologue and Epilogue are predictably ‘ All the world’s a stage’ and ‘Our revels now are ended’, yet from Antony and Cleopatra there is Enobarbus’ much anthologised description of Cleopatra and most of Act 2 scene 5, which is an usual choice. The paratexts, as much as the Shakespearean selections, mould the Shakespeare this anthology creates, and many of these are quotes from the Prince himself. There is an intrinsic irresistible interest in any expression of opinion by the heir to the throne which makes the introduction and epigraphs more likely to be read than those in other anthologies. ‘The Country’ is a troublesome category. The section epigraph in the book is from the Prince’s book Highgrove. When I was younger… I felt a strong attachment to the soil of those places I loved best – Balmoral in Scotland, and Sandringham in Norfolk. As far as I was concerned, every tree, every hedgerow, every wet place, every mountain and river had a special, almost sacred, character of its own.
For the Prince, ‘The Country’ means the rural countryside of the remoter royal houses. The introductory passage in the audio-book, taken from the book’s Introduction and originally part of his 1991 Shakespeare lecture, is different: Shakespeare’s language is ours, his roots are ours, his culture is ours – brought up as he was in the gentle Warwickshire countryside, educated at the grammar school in Stratford, baptized and buried in the local church. His message, however, is a universal, timeless one. He is not just our poet, but the world’s.
In 1995 the language, roots and culture the Prince describes were no longer shared by vast numbers of his future subjects. It would seem that ‘The Country’ in the Prince’s terms, means a political and geographical entity (England and her countryside) and a set of shared cultural values that are essentially English. The extracts chosen seem to reflect this bifocal view as they relate either to the countryside or to the political entity or both. ‘This royal throne of kings’ clearly
251 relates to a political entity, the kingdom of England. The introduction to the extract from the ‘garden’ scene in Richard II indicates that the garden is a metaphor for ‘the kingdom’ but also suggests the extract reveals Shakespeare’s knowledge of gardening. The extracts from As You Like It (2.1 1-20 and 3.2.11-68) abut one another and seem to describe the good life to be found in the countryside. When read alongside the Prince’s epigraph, the strong implication is that this is to be preferred to (urban) life at court. In this section Shakespeare apparently shared and supports the Prince’s world view. Despite the Introduction’s self-deprecatory tone, a princely vanity is exposed in his having been persuaded that his choice of Shakespeare would be of general interest. As well as Prince Charles appropriating Shakespeare to enhance his public image as a sensitive lover of the arts and self-appointed guardian of ‘our’ culture the Prince hoped that his anthology would encourage readers and listeners to read Shakespeare’s plays or go and see them in the theatre. He also used the anthology as a hand-grenade in his on-going engagement in the ‘battle of the bard’.158 Since the anthology’s Introduction is from his 1991 Shakespeare lecture it is hard to avoid reading it intertextually with that speech; doing so leads to the conclusion that ‘this little anthology’ was used as part of a bigger campaign. In the lecture the Prince outlined his opinion of what Shakespeare is and does, reflecting a widely held set of beliefs rooted in Coleridge and Bradley, and based almost exclusively on the plays: Shakespeare is a universally valid and timeless ‘philosopher’ and genius with an astounding insight into the human psyche. The lecture criticised English state education. Clearly of the ‘cultural heritagist’ persuasion and speaking for ‘ordinary’ parents the Prince attacked ‘fashionable’ trends in education: ‘the ‘relevant’, the exclusively contemporary, the immediately palatable’ and ‘too great an emphasis on the child-centred approach’ all of which he argued lead to ‘an entire generation of culturally disinherited young people’ and is unlikely to ‘instil fundamental standards
158 In the late 1980s and early 1990s opinions clashed regarding the place of Shakespeare in of English studies in schools, coinciding with the government’s plan to introduce a National Curriculum and a programme of national testing at various ‘key stages’. This clash was crudely summarised on the RSC website as one between ‘left wing cultural materialists and right wing cultural heritagists’. (
159 Hypocritical from someone who, according to Robert Stephens, confided that he did not have time to read the plays. 253 are today’. His plays ‘communicate wisdom through the evocation and study of human emotion, thought and behaviour’ and so Shakespeare remains ‘eternally relevant’, his ‘message’ a ‘universal timeless one’.160
A Choice of Shakespeare’s Verse, 1971
Unlike The Prince’s Choice, Ted Hughes’s A Choice of Shakespeare’s Verse was commercially successful. Hughes suggested the anthology to his publishers in 1969: Is there any possibility of your doing in the same series a selection of Shakespeare’s shorter pieces. I’m always amazed that there is no single portable book where I can read all my favourite passages from the plays etc. One result of the reverence that leaves the big speeches buried in the plays is that only scholars and actors doing that play ever read them. I don’t think extracting ‘beauties from the plays’ is so reprehensible, except to the fanatics who read their complete Shakespeare steadily and constantly. The big passages aren’t so dependent on their context that they become small and empty when they’re read separate. Along with the passages from the plays (no passages at all from some plays, one or two only from others) there would be a selection of the sonnets and the short poems. If you think this would be possible I would love to do it. After all, it would be the best book of poetry in English (after the complete works.)161
Choice was first published in the UK in November 1971, having appeared as With Fairest Flowers While Summer Lasts in May 1971 in the US. The anthology was revised, recycled and reissued several times during Hughes’s lifetime. In 1991 a revised Choice was published in the UK and in the US as The Essential Shakespeare. In 2000 Faber repackaged the revised anthology for their Poet to Poet series under the title William Shakespeare. (See Appendix 46). Hughes worked quickly, submitting the manuscript to Faber, less than six months from being commissioned, with an explanation of his approach: Here is the Shakespeare Selection. It is rather long, but I think the real point of it is to be long, and so include both the well-known good and the not so well-known good. It will not be longer than some of your paperbacks. And being long, it will be big enough for readers to be constantly finding some thing [sic] new in it. A short selection would be little more than a pedestal for the greatest most famous. You couldn’t make a selection of the less well- known passages and leave out the well-known assumed well-known. Perhaps
160 Prince’s Choice, 3. 161 Letter to Charles Monteith, 19 February 1969, Christopher Reid, ed., Letters of Ted Hughes (London: Faber & Faber, 2007), 288. 254
you could. Anyway, I hope you’ll agree the point of this one is to be pretty long, pretty big. […] I’ve spent a long time writing a long introduction to this selection, but finally I think this brief piece is best. My ignorance of Shakespeare scholarship wouldn’t recommend me, and this is no place to brandish opinions and interpretations, I think.162
Hughes presented extracts from Shakespeare in a striking way to create his Shakespeare, using the anthology to explore his idiosyncratic ideas about Shakespeare that would later find full expression in his monograph Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being.163 Hughes’s Shakespeare criticism is complex and untangling the various versions is difficult.164 He regarded Shakespeare’s texts or the greater part of them from As You Like It to The Tempest as a single, tightly integrated work. Hughes wrote that when compiling Choice and ‘selecting for poetic intensity, length and completeness’ he found that passages with those qualities ‘nearly all [had] a family likeness, especially those coming from Hamlet and the plays after’, concluding that, whenever Shakespeare wrote at top intensity, at unusual length, in a burst of unusually self-contained completeness, he was almost invariably hammering at the same thing – a particular knot of obsessions.165
Hughes argues that this ‘knot of obsessions’ and the resulting poetry which has ‘its taproot in a sexual dilemma of a peculiarly black and ugly sort’ display a ‘single fundamental idea’ or the ‘symbolic fable which nearly all [Shakespeare’s] greatest passages combine to tell, and which each of his plays in some form or other tell over again’.166 This ‘fable’ is first set out in Venus and Adonis and Lucrece. It then went underground, although fragments can be detected in the early plays, until he was able to reveal it again in full in Hamlet. Thereafter it becomes the main subject of the plays until Henry VIII and Two Noble Kinsmen. Through this ‘knot of obsessions’, Shakespeare was embedded in the prevailing psychic conflict of his time: the struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism. This conflict, Hughes argues, was
162 Letter 23 June 1969, Letters, 292/3. 163 Ted Hughes, Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being (London: Faber, 1992). 164 Versions do not necessarily supersede one another; the version in Choice’s 1971 Note was not completely replaced by that in Goddess and Hughes republished it in his 1994 prose collection Winter Pollen. That Hughes appreciated the difficulty of his ideas is suggested in his playful note in Leonard Baskin’s copy of Goddess. See footnote 170 below. 165 Choice, 181. 166 Ibid., 181/2. 255 suppressed by the Elizabethan state and became internalised within each of Elizabeth’s subjects to become the crucial psychodrama of English national identity. Venus and Adonis is essentially a Protestant poem about the rejection of the Catholic faith in the form of the mother goddess (Venus) by the puritan (Adonis). Lucrece is a deeply Catholic poem in which Lucrece represents the Catholic viewpoint, the rapist Tarquin standing for puritan fury and iconoclasm directed against the female in the form of the Virgin. In 1971 Hughes wrote: In those two long poems, then, Shakespeare established his four poles of energy – Lucrece, Venus, Tarquin, Adonis – as phases in a narrative cycle: Venus confronts Adonis, whereupon Adonis dies through some form of destroying tempest and is reborn through a flower death, as Tarquin, whereupon Tarquin destroys Lucrece (and himself and all order). The plays rearrange these four poles in all manner of combinations, in what looks like Shakespeare’s attempt to reverse the decision – pronounced so emphatically in the two long poems and in each subsequent play up to Timon – against Adonis and Lucrece. Each play represents an increasingly desperate effort to lift an infernal cauldron of sexual evil. Parallel to that runs a steady effort to save Adonis, somehow or other from the boar. It is interesting to watch how –after King Lear and its equally horrible afterbirth Timon – Shakespeare suddenly steps back and relaxes the pressure. Coriolanus is the first play where the Tarquinized Adonis finally refuses to go through with it. From that point Shakespeare begins to cheat, and we begin to call what he then writes ‘romances’. In these plays the young women, murdered by madmen or tempest, do not actually die – they reappear to make everybody happy. What Shakespeare records […] is the gradual defeat of Venus and the Boar.167
By the time his theory had been fully worked out in Goddess Hughes’s Shakespeare or ‘Will’ is a ‘mythic poet’ concerned with working through the ‘single fundamental idea’ (now termed ‘the Tragic Equation’) rather than the ‘realistic’ poet ‘who invents the characters and who everyone else writes about’.168 This is the ‘Will’ or Shakespeare that Hughes described in Goddess and the poet he represented in the anthology and in his own ‘Shakespeare’ poems. Hughes’s lifelong obsession with Shakespeare is well documented by biographers and critics and it permeated his own work.169 Besides his prose, this is most explicit in poems like ‘Prospero and Sycorax’, ‘An Alchemy’, ‘Unfinished
167 Ibid., 194/5. 168 From Hughes’s autograph note on the flyleaf of Leonard Baskin’s copy of Goddess. BL Shelfmark: Hughes 76. (transcribed in Appendix 46). 169 See Letter to Olwyn Hughes February 1952, Letters, 12; Diane Middlebrook, Her Husband, Hughes and Plath – a Marriage (New York: Viking/Penguin, 2003), 8, 83; Sylvia Plath’s letter to her mother, 2 August 1956, quoted by Susan R. Van Dynes in Revising Life: The Ariel Poems of Sylvia Plath (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 19. 256
Mystery’ and ‘A Full House’. A Choice of Shakespeare’s Verse and ‘Prospero and Sycorax’ cross-fertilise. The poem was first published in Shakespeare’s Poem (1971), a ‘limited edition’ pamphlet comprising the poem, here titled ‘Crow’s Song about Prospero and Sycorax’, and Hughes’s commentary on it.170 The commentary is, with minor variations, Hughes’s ‘Note’ in Choice. ‘An Alchemy’ was written as a contribution for the (yet to be built) Globe Theatre’s Shakespeare Birthday Celebrations and was subsequently published in Poems for Shakespeare (1973).171 At the time Hughes told Peter Redgrove that the poem ‘derives from the note to [his] selection from Shakespeare’s verse’ and explained the poem in the context of his ideas about Shakespeare.172 ‘A Full House’ was initially published in Poems for Shakespeare 10 in 1987.173 This poem echoes several of Hughes’s Shakespeare theories outlined in Choice’s ‘Note’ and developed fully in Goddess. Hughes never explicitly compared himself to Shakespeare but others are less reticent. Reviewing Goddess Terry Eagleton commented: The Shakespeare who emerges from this book is uncannily familiar. He is a poet of primitive violence, animal energies, dark irrational forces and incessant sexual strife. In fact he is, by a remarkable coincidence, a mirror image of the Laureate himself.174
Sasha Roberts compares Hughes (especially in Goddess) to Coleridge; both poets who used Shakespeare’s narrative poetry ‘to develop a thesis of poetry that describes their own work as much as it illuminates Shakespeare’s’.175 Friend and fellow poet Craig Raine identifies two kinds of poet: ‘the egotistical sublime’ such as Wordsworth, whose subject is himself, and the ‘Shakespearean’ or ‘invisible poet who enters his subjects and loses himself there’. Raine firmly places Hughes in the
170 Ted Hughes, Shakespeare’s Poem (London: Lexham Press, 1971). 171Graham Fawcett, ed., Poems for Shakespeare (London: Globe Playhouse Trust Publications, 1973). 172 Letters, 335-7. 173 Charles Osborne ed., Poems for Shakespeare No. 10 (London: Bishopsgate, 1987). Both ‘A Full House’ and ‘An Alchemy’ were reprinted in ed. Charles Osborne, Anthology for Shakespeare (London: Bishopsgate Press, 1988) . Hughes may have had further thoughts about ‘An Alchemy’. A copy of Anthology for Shakespeare in the British Library’s Hughes Archive (Add. MS 88918/10/14) is heavily revised by Hughes in red ink. A typed copy of the poem as revised is held in the same document folder. Here this poem runs on without a break into a revised version of his poem ‘Unfinished Mystery’. The language of both revised poems is darker, more violent than the versions that have appeared in print. 174 Terry Eagleton, ‘Will and Ted’s Bogus Journey’, The Guardian, 2 April 1992, 26. 175 Sasha Roberts, ‘Reception and Influence’ in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s Poetry, 260-280, 272. 257
Shakespearean category.176 After Hughes died it is striking how several tributes equated him with Shakespeare. Roy Davids described himself as the grateful beneficiary of Hughes’s ‘Shakespearean mind’.177 Davids’ poem ‘Memories, Reflections, Gratitudes (November 1998)’ contains the following lines I am in awe of your Shakespearean mind, The great arc of your intellect, Your god-like talent and your skill, The mellow music of your tongue.178
Adrian Mitchell’s poem ‘For Carol and Ted Hughes’ describes Hughes as ‘the son of Shakespeare’.179 The extracts that bookend Choice: Puck’s ‘Now the hungry lion roars…’and ‘The Phoenix and the Turtle’ are reminiscent of some of Hughes’s poetry and lines in the ‘Candles for the Cake’, part of ‘A Birthday Masque’, seem inspired by ‘The Phoenix and the Turtle’. A Choice of Shakespeare’s Verse mixes extracts from Shakespeare’s plays and narrative poems and complete sonnets and shorter poems. While including ‘the well-known good’ Hughes also wanted to bring to a wider readership passages which he thought were ‘buried’ in the plays and only accessed by actors ‘doing’ the play and academics.180 He also aimed to encourage readers who do not ‘get beyond the seven or eight popular plays’ to read more widely in Shakespeare.181 In the main text, extracts are numbered and there are no indications of source, no titles, no scene- setting information and no stage directions or speech prefixes.182 Unencumbered by such paratexts, as they often are in other anthologies, the words are allowed to speak for themselves. This is deliberate. Hughes explains that he has kept to passages of ‘top pressure’ poetry which are ‘long enough and self-contained enough to strike up a life of their own’; each extract is intended to be read on its own merits, as a discrete poem.
176 Craig Raine, ‘Profile:Ted Hughes’ in Haydn and The Valve Trumpet (London: Faber & Faber, 1990), 495-8, 497. 177. ‘The Table Talk of Ted Hughes – a Counterblast’, a belated response to an article by Horatio Morpurgo ‘The Table Talk of Ted Hughes’ published in 2001 in Arete which Davids considered highly critical of Hughes the man.
For Hughes play extracts have a double life, one in the play and one outside it. Within the play the words are somehow apart from ordinary life: the play binds the words magnetically, decides their meaning and polarity, seals them off from ordinary life, consecrates and inspires them. Reading them in context, we look through them into the action and life of the play, a wonderfully well organized circuit of interior illuminations, to which all the complexities of the words are aligned with such subtle accuracy it seems miraculous, and which is a bigger poem in bigger language and of greater beauty than any brief isolated passage of verse could possibly bring into focus.183
Hughes believed Shakespeare’s plays were for reading as much as for performance. Excised from the plays, extracts become ‘different words’, poems to be experienced by the reader: Fallen from the visionary world of the play, they have to make their meaning out of the rubbish and more or less chaotic half-digested turn over of experience, the flux of half-memories and broken glimpses, in their reader at the moment of reading. And suddenly we notice what densely peculiar verbal poetry they are. We see quite new things in them, a teeming of possibilities, as we look through them into our own darkness.184
Hughes recognises a paradox in his project. On the one hand, each Shakespeare play is a ‘bigger poem’ and isolating passages lessens their poetry: ‘The fragment of a long poem does not become a short poem. It remains a fragment, its elements are not balanced within itself, and so it gives a sense of unease’.185 On the other hand, he wanted to bring Shakespeare’s poetry out ‘from under the drama and their funereal pyramid of theatre convention, and present the best of it straight’.186 In the anthology Shakespeare is made a new poet, an ‘ordinary’ poet (like Hughes perhaps) and new ‘ordinary’ poems are created from fragments of his play texts. So in separating these passages from the plays, we lessen their poetry but we liberate something in the activity of the language. Entering the world of ordinary poets and poetry, they become more common to the language in general and more personal to us. And so in a way we gain a poet.187
Hughes expanded these thoughts in the Introduction to the 1991 Choice, again regarding Shakespeare as primarily a poet. He argued that anthologies using only
183 Choice, 9. 184 Ibid., 10. 185 Ibid., 13. 186 Ibid., 12. 187 Ibid., 10. 259
Shakespeare’s sonnets and songs have made it difficult to ‘settle Shakespeare into the succession of poets in English’ and considered the ‘great speeches’ no more difficult to understand out of their context and in ‘many cases’ easier. He conceded that reading a passage outside of the play misses ‘the great imaginative experience of the drama’ but gains ‘something else’, ‘a pure bonus’; in other words, these ‘self- sufficient’ passages ‘capable of striking up a life of their own’ become poems.188 The Introduction (1971) outlines Hughes’s methodology. He avoided dialogue, or deleted one side of the dialogue to reinforce the passage’s separation from the play and allow it to be experienced for itself: ‘A single interjection, even the bare heading of the speaker’s name, is often enough to pitch the reader’s attention beyond the words and into the action of the play’.189 This technique also made these extracts look like poems. When he did use dialogue, speech prefixes are replaced with dashes. The passages from one play are not placed consecutively ‘to dispel the sense of context which is generated wherever two or three passages from the same play get together’.190 At the back of the book information about the source texts, act and scene references and the character speaking and an index of first lines are supplied. The layout and minimal paratextual material blurs distinctions between passages from the drama and the sonnets and songs; all look like poems. As well as the more unusual selections and use of the ‘less well-known’ plays like Troilus and Timon, Hughes includes ‘well-known’ passages like ‘This royal throne of kings’, ‘All the world’s a stage’ , and ‘The quality of mercy ’ occasionally refreshing them by starting at an unconventional point. Henry V’s speech before Agincourt begins ‘If we are mark’d to die’ rather than with Warwick’s lines, or at the start of Henry’s speech. Although the anthology is nominally a choice of Shakespeare’s verse, Hughes included several prose extracts from the plays as prose poems. Some are well-known set-pieces: Mistress Quickly’s description of Falstaff’s death (Henry V, 2.3.9-25) and Hamlet’s ‘What a piece of work is a man’ (Hamlet, 2.2.294-312). Others are less familiar like a dialogue between Iago and Roderigo, (Othello 2.1.222-264) and a speech from Timon of Athens (4.3.330-347). Hughes occasionally created a Shakespeare ‘poem’ by deleting one side of a dialogue, for example, a passage of dialogue between Prospero and Ariel (Tempest 2.1. 251-296)
188 Choice 1991, 2-3. 189 Choice, 12. 190 Ibid., 12. 260 where all Ariel’s words and several of Prospero’s half-lines are cut. Elsewhere, Hughes cuts and pastes to create a ‘poem’. The most glaring example is from Act 5, scene 5 Troilus where a passage from Ulysses’ speech (30-42) is followed by lines from Nestor’s speech (19-29) and then lines from Agamemnon’s speech (6-16). Hughes claimed that the extracts were arranged in ‘roughly chronological’ order,191 but, even taking into account his policy of separating extracts from the same play (which he does not always follow), the order is far from chronological. The anthology is divided into three unequal sections.192 Section I opens with an extract from the Dream and includes passages from plays as early as The Two Gentlemen and as late as As You Like It as well as material from The Passionate Pilgrim, Lucrece and the sonnets. There is a greater chronological overlap in the other sections. Section II uses mainly material from Hamlet, Measure for Measure, Lear, Othello, Macbeth, Timon and Troilus but also takes passages from The Two Gentlemen, The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale. Section III takes from plays ranging from Coriolanus to The Tempest with extracts from Antony and Cleopatra straddling Sections II and III. 193 In fact Hughes arranged the extracts to support his Shakespeare theories and foreshadowed the order in which he would consider the plays in Goddess: Section I takes mainly from texts dealt with in Part I of Goddess, Sections II and III take passages covered in Parts II and III of Goddess. Arguably, Hughes’s ordering of the extracts encouraged reading them as one long ‘poem’, as Feuer did in Soundings (see Appendix 41) and supported his concept of Shakespeare’s ‘work’. Hughes said that he came upon his Shakespeare theory, or ‘the Shakespeare myth’, ‘inadvertently, via the anthology’.194 But, despite having written that the anthology was ‘no place to brandish opinions and interpretations’,195 the first public version of his ‘Shakespeare myth’ is the ‘Note’ appended to Choice in 1971. The ideas in Goddess were finally worked out in 1990 in a series of letters to Swedish theatre director Donya Feuer. When Hughes’s Shakespeare anthology was revised in 1991, after his Shakespeare theory had crystallised, he took the opportunity to increase the number of extracts and completely revise his Introduction and Note to
191 Ibid., 12. 192 The 1991 Choice is not so divided. 193 Plays not used are mainly very early and very late (1 & 2H6, Tit, CE, H8, TNK), but also MW and MA, although passages from these are included in 1991 Choice. 194 Goddess, xi. 195 Letters, 292/3. 261 set out aspects of ‘the Shakespeare myth’. Whether compiling the anthology initiated Hughes’s Shakespeare theory or whether its arrangement followed ideas he was already developing is debatable. Diane Middlebrook, describes Choice as an ‘unorthodox’ anthology and suggests that he ‘culled passages from Shakespeare’s plays and then sequenced them to illustrate an idea he had about Shakespeare’ and ‘organized [Choice] to clarify the “symbolic fable” that could be discovered in Shakespeare’s storytelling’.196 Hughes’s friend Ann Pasternak-Slater understood from Hughes that the theory came afterwards: in the process of putting together the extracts and looking over the completed selection he found he had put together extracts demonstrating a remarkable repeated pattern which he went on to describe in the postscript ‘Note’ to Choice.197 Neil Corcoran suggests Hughes’s theory ‘explicitly developed from his work for’ the anthology.198 Hughes took extracts from Shakespeare’s Complete Works, in his opinion the ‘best book of poetry in English’,199 and created his own Shakespeare: a contemporary poet like Hughes himself. David Holbrook’s attack on Hughes’s 1971 ‘Note’ recognises this. He finds Hughes, attempting thus to cut Shakespeare down, to fit his own limited and bleak philosophy of being – to something like the shrunken lump of pitiful pulsating insignificance to which Hughes reduces life in his repugnant, cynical and nihilistic Crow.200
The anthology’s layout made it look like a book of modern poetry. Hughes hoped to surprise his readers with a new unexpected Shakespeare, he wanted them to find ‘new’ poems as if ‘their greatest poet had suddenly up and published a new volume’.201 Hughes’s lifelong obsession with Shakespeare and attempts to fathom Shakespeare’s ‘bottomlessness’ informs Choice and drives him to create Shakespeare as a poet like himself, 202 struggling in the seventeenth century to come to terms with the fundamental issues or ‘myth’ of the human condition as Hughes
196 Middlebrook, 244-5. 197 Private email conversation with Ann Pasternak-Slater, July-September 2009. 198 Neil Corcoran, Shakespeare and the Modern Poet (Cambridge: CUP, 2010), 200-222. 199 Letters,288. 200 David Holbrook, ‘The Crow of Avon? Shakespeare, Sex and Ted Hughes’, Cambridge Quarterly, XV(1) (1986), 1-17, 17. 201 Choice, 9. 202 ‘Bottomlessness’ is Ron Rosenbaum’s term. See Ron Rosenbaum, The Shakespeare Wars, (New York: Random House, 2006), 1 –26.Coincidentally, like Hughes’s, Rosenbaum’s engagement with Shakespeare was influenced by his encounters with Peter Brook. Goddess was dedicated to Peter Brook as well as Donya Feuer and Roy Davids. See Ron Rosenbaum, The Shakespeare Wars (New York: Random House, 2006), 1 –26. 262 did in the twentieth century. His anthology selection comprises passages from Shakespeare that seem to address the same concerns as Hughes’s poems, the anthology’s paratexts directing interpretation. Shakespeare is not a poet like Hughes but is seen through the lens of Hughes’s preoccupations. In A Choice of Shakespeare’s Verse, Shakespeare serves as a vehicle for the anthologist’s theories and yet Hughes’s selection and methodology succeed in creating, as he had intended, a ‘new’ poet Shakespeare.
V
The heading to this chapter refers to anthologies with a purpose and all the anthologies considered did more than just collect texts. Each created its own Shakespeare that ranged from a lyric poet, to a philosopher offering solace and to a patriot expressing the nation’s thoughts and bolstering national morale in time of war. Some, like The Oxford Books had a ‘public’ character others, like Ted Hughes’s were what Graves and Riding described as ‘private’ anthologies. Some were significant because they enjoyed commercial success and disseminated their Shakespeare to a large audience, or attracted attention because of their anthologist. Others expanded the boundaries of the anthology format. The early performed anthologies were the forerunners of the numerous audio and video Shakespeare anthologies now available on CD, DVD and iPad app. The loose page structure of The Times Broadsheets, that could be rapidly disposed of or collected and arranged by their owners, anticipated the web pages of on-line anthologies of a century later. Overwhelmingly though the Shakespeares created and disseminated by these twentieth-century anthologies were very like those the anthologists of earlier centuries had presented: the lyric poet and the source of wisdom.
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Conclusion
Disappointed by a general ignorance of Shakespeare’s works, Ted Hughes believed that, at best, most educated people would read perhaps eight of Shakespeare’s plays. In 1992 he suggested to Derwent May that he ask his acquaintances what Shakespeare they had read. Hughes commented: I have yet to find anybody – other than English Professors and Peter Redgrove – who have read more than twelve more than twice. The average – read even once – I find to be eight. (I’ve been popping the question now and again for years. I know lots of my friends are not very literate, but I ask writers too). Sylvia Plath had read six. Nor did she read any more while I knew her.1
As I have shown, paratexts reveal that remedying this general ignorance by disseminating Shakespeare (or at least the fragments of his texts deemed essential) to a wide readership was an aim of many anthologists, particularly from the nineteenth century onwards when Shakespeare’s iconic status was becoming established. From the outset, at the end of the sixteenth century, anthologies were numerically significant as disseminators of Shakespeare. As my first chapter argues, through their manipulation of extracts from Shakespeare’s texts they offered alternatives to the man of the theatre and made him into an amorous lyrical poet in The Passionate Pilgrim, Englands Parnassus and Englands Helicon and a metaphysical poet in Loves Martyr. Simultaneously Belvedere and Englands Parnassus created a Shakespeare who was the source of fine expressions of ‘wisdom’ in the form of ‘sentences’ or commonplaces. But in these anthologies Shakespeare was one among many other writers. My second chapter examines how these Shakespeares continued to be created and disseminated by a handful of later-seventeenth-century anthologists, while he was almost ignored in the numerous mid-century miscellanies. Cotgrave’s and Poole’s anthologies presented and valued the relatively anonymous Shakespeare who provided useful extractions of ‘wit’ or wisdom and ‘language’ or exquisite poetic expression, in the form of commonplaces. At around the same time in anthologies of drolls Shakespeare the dramatist was revived as a creator of comic characters and situations, but again a lack of clear attribution in The Wits series of droll anthologies makes him just one among the ‘ablest artists’ that were the English dramatists active
1 Hughes Letters, 605. 264 before 1642. Sasha Roberts has shown that in the early and mid-seventeenth century Shakespeare’s narrative poems were widely read. At the same time as the narrative poet Shakespeare was enjoyed, John Benson’s anthology re-created the lyric poet Shakespeare as a mid-seventeenth-century poet worthy of his own collection of poems. In the eighteenth century, when Shakespeare’s National Poet status was under construction, the greater number of anthologies printed and the market success of many of them naturally increased their significance as disseminators of Shakespeare, especially to readers who might not otherwise read him. The appendices to this thesis detailing the Shakespeare content of eighteenth-century anthologies illustrate that their anthologists repeatedly circulated, in an accessible form, many of the same extracts. They circulated them as Shakespeare’s beauties, chosen for their expression or sentiments (often referred to as their ‘morals’), or as poems, and in so doing they re-created Shakespeare the poet and Shakespeare the repository of wisdom or moral guidance. Anthologies devoted to extracts from Shakespeare were the eighteenth century’s innovation – and as I have shown the innovator was Gildon rather than Dodd. However in the century which established Shakespeare as National Poet, his texts by no means dominated anthologies that collected from many writers, and the number of Shakespeare-only anthologies whose very existence make a special case for him were surprisingly few. The deluge of nineteenth-century anthologies, many of which sold in very large numbers, disseminated Shakespeare in accessible extracts, as ‘gems’, ‘proverbs’ and ‘poems’, to a wider readership than ever before. Significantly, novel anthology formats like Shakespeare birthday books and greetings postcards distributed Shakespeare to vast numbers of readers, who might not otherwise have had access to his texts. As discussed, many anthologies now made a virtue of presenting the ‘essential’ bits of Shakespeare to readers, implicitly suggesting that they need read no further. I have shown that in these nineteenth-century anthologies, Shakespeare was again created, variously, as a lyric poet and as a moral philosopher and source of moral guidance and comfort, and, in a peculiarly nineteenth-century variation, as a source of secular scripture. Chronologically arranged anthologies located Shakespeare in a canon of English poetry and positioned him within English literature’s welding of national unity or patriotism, a role developed to an extreme in twentieth-century wartime anthologies. The anthologists created Shakespeares 265 through their selection and manipulation of his texts but also through their paratextual claims for him. We see nineteenth-century anthology paratexts claiming for Shakespeare a status greater than that of National Poet; he was ‘the world’s greatest poet’, ‘the greatest genius the world has ever known’, and in possession of ‘the world’s greatest intellect’.2 The cumulative effect of the mass of nineteenth- century anthologies and their penetration to readers, who may only have engaged with Shakespeare through them, made their influence in shaping the general perception of Shakespeare in the century very significant. As I have shown, in the twentieth century anthologists continued to create Shakespeare the poet and Shakespeare the moral philosopher, both as before and with variations. He lived on as a lyric poet in anthologies like Q’s The Oxford Book of English Verse and as a modern poet in Ted Hughes’s A Choice of Shakespeare’s Verse. In wartime the poet Shakespeare became a patriotic poet; variously a bellicose patriot like Wilson Knight’s, or the quiet patriot and expresser of Englishness created by Edward Thomas, and later by Prince Charles in the peacetime ‘battle of the bard’. Countless anthologies now add to the deluge. Some recreate Shakespeare as a poet in anthologies like Shakespeare in Love, which cashes in on the eponymous film, with a selection of sonnets and speeches and songs (all presented as poems), or To Be or Not to Be that offers a selection of soliloquies as poems.3 Others like The Arden Shakespeare series of modern day commonplace books, quotation books on topics ranging from ‘Love’ to ‘The Seven Ages of Man’, portray Shakespeare as the source of ‘something special to say’ for those seeking ‘the perfect phrase that expresses your thoughts better than you can’.4 I have not, within the bounds of this thesis, been able to examine the many anthologies that deal with the dramatist Shakespeare and repackage extracts of the plays often for teaching purposes, or for actors as collections of audition pieces. Nor have I looked at themed collections of short quotes, perhaps ‘anthologies’, often taking the form of artefacts. Examples are miniature ‘gift’ books like The Bard’s Guide to Abuses and Affronts, a computer mouse mat collecting extracts from Shakespeare’s plays that include the word ‘mouse’, and postcards and tea towels
2 Leigh Hunt, 108; Bellew, 169; Cowden Clarke Proverbs, 7. 3 Anon.,Shakespeare in Love. The Love Poetry of William Shakespeare (London: Faber & Faber, 1999). Michael Kerrigan, ed., To Be or Not to Be. Shakespeare’s Soliloquies (London: Penguin, 2002). 4, Jane Armstrong, The Arden Shakespeare Book of Quotations on Love (London: Thomson Learning, 2001), publisher’s paratexts on back cover. 266 displaying, for example, ‘Shakespeare’s Love Quotes’.5 Here the, usually anonymous, anthologist’s work is restricted to collecting very short phrases from a ‘witty’ Shakespeare. At some point between the mid-eighteenth century and the end of the twentieth century Shakespeare’s iconic status was achieved. Its existence and its wide recognition are demonstrated today in the humorous irreverence towards Shakespeare exhibited by some contemporary anthologists: their irony and humour cannot work if its object is not securely established. My favourite, and an extreme example, is an unstructured ‘anthology’ that applies the ideas of ‘cut up’ poetry to Shakespeare: the ‘Shakespeare Magnetic Poetry Kit’ – a set of 200 ‘Bard-inspired’ magnetic word tiles (small fridge magnets) ‘drawn from the works of Shakespeare’ that the owners can use to create their own unstable and changing anthology of ‘Shakespeare’ extracts.6 Through this cross-period thesis I have shown that the Shakespeares anthologies create have remained remarkably consistent. In the twenty-first century the anthology has now migrated to the internet with a potential readership of millions. One example is www.shakespeare-online.com. This entertaining website contains a page, regularly refreshed, which is an anthology of extracts from Shakespeare.7 It re-creates the poet Shakespeare by offering, on a play by play basis, as Dodd and many other anthologists did, Shakespeare’s ‘beauties’ in the form of short quotes and poems. It recreates the philosopher Shakespeare by offering, under subject headings, as early modern and many subsequent anthologists did, short extracts that in earlier times would have been termed commonplaces, and, rather like Shakespeare birthday books and almanacs, it offers a Shakespeare ‘Proverb of the Day’. Defining the global brand or icon Shakespeare is problematic. It is an amalgam of each and every ‘Shakespeare’ ever created by performance, by his texts and the texts of other and by artefacts of all kinds. And the icon is not a fixed entity, as Kate Rumbold’s assessment of the contribution of anthologies to the icon ‘Shakespeare Anthologized’ seems to suggest. Anthologies have contributed to its
5 Anon., The Bard’s Guide to Abuses and Affronts (Philadelphia; London: Running Press, 2001). Mouse quotes computer mouse mat on sale in Shakespeare’s Globe Shop, London in 2008. ‘Shakespeare’s Love Quotes’ postcard Shakespeare’s Globe Shop in 2013, also available as tea towel and fridge magnets. 6 Wording on the packaging. See
268
APPENDICES Bibliographical and content detail of anthologies considered in this thesis
APPENDIX 1 The Passionate Pilgrim, 1599.
I. Contents of O2 The Passionate Pilgrim, 1599.
No. First line Sig. Attribution
BLANK A1r/v TITLE PAGE A2r THE PASSIONATE PILGRIME By W. Shakespeare
PP1 When my Loue sweares A3r Shakespeare Sonnet 138 PP2 Two Loues I haue A4r Shakespeare Sonnet 144 PP3 Did not the heauenly Rhetorike A5r Shakespeare LLL 4.3.57-70 PP4 Sweet Cytherea A6r PP5 If Loue make me forsworn A7r Shakespeare LLL 4.2.105-118 PP6 Scarse had the Sunne A8r PP7 Faire is my loue B1r PP8 If Musicke and sweet Poetrie B2r Barnfield Poems in Divers Humours sig.E2r PP9 Faire was the morne B3r PP10 Sweet rose, faire flower B4r PP11 Venus with Adonis sitting B5r Griffin Fidessa B2r PP12 Crabbed age and youth B6r Deloney ? First printed in his The Garland of Goodwill c. 1593-6 earliest extant copy dated 1628. PP13 Beauty is but a vaine B7r
PP14 Good night, good rest B8r/C1r/C2r
TITLE PAGE C3r SONNETS To sundry notes of Musicke
PP15 It was a Lordings daughter C4r PP16 On a day (alacke the day) C5r Shakespeare LLL 4.3.98-118 PP17 My flocks feede not C6r/C7r/C8r PP18 When as thine eye hath chose D1r/D2r/D3r/ D4r
269
PP19 Liue with me and be my Loue D5r/D5v Marlowe/?Ralegh PP20 As it fell vpon a Day D6r/D6v/D7r/ Barnfield Poems D7v in Divers Humours
BLANK D8r/v
II. Early Editions of The Passionate Pilgrim
O1 Title-page missing STC 22341.5 In 1920 an imperfect copy of The Passionate Pilgrim was discovered bound up with other texts. This comprises 11 leaves from a previously unknown edition of The Passionate Pilgrim and leaves from another edition. It lacks a title-page and cannot be dated. The printer is unknown. This copy is now in the Folger Shakespeare Library. It is now generally accepted that the Folger copy contains 11 sheets from an edition (the first edition – O1) printed either in 1598 or 1599.1 It is in octavo format. The leaves have no signatures or page numbers and the poems are unnumbered. The text of the poems 1 to 13 is printed on the rectos only, poem 14 was printed on the recto and verso of B8, 15 and 16 were printed on the rectos of C1-2 and 17, 18 and 20 were printed on rectos and verso but as their final stanzas occurred on rectos the versos of leaves C4 and C7 were left blank and the next poem is started on the next recto. Poem 19 was printed on the recto and verso of C8. The editors of the Arden Third Series edition of Shakespeare’s Poems conclude that an initial plan to print all poems on rectos only was modified in relation to poems of more than 18 lines, for which it was decided that verso could be used; but in no case was a poem to be begun on a verso.2
The poems are set between rows of printer’s flowers, a single row of five motifs above and a double row of six motifs below. It is likely that O1 had the same contents as O2 although Quincy Adams has demonstrated that O1 was unlikely to have carried the second, inner title-page that O2 has.3
1 See J. Quincy Adams, The Passionate Pilgrim, xvi-xvii, and Katherine Duncan-Jones and H. R.Woudhuysen, eds., Shakespeare’s Poems (London: Thomson Learning, 2007), 489-498. 2 Duncan-Jones and Woudhuysen, 491. 3 Quincy Adams (xxxiv –xxxv) 270
As O1 lacks a title page it cannot be dated nor can the printer and publisher be identified. O1 Pilgrim is generally dated 1598/9, partly because it contains three extracts from Love’s Labour’s Lost, Q1 of which was printed in 1598 although this presupposes that the anthologist used that quarto as a source. Also persuasive for a dating of 1598/9 for the first edition, but also inconclusive, is the inclusion of two poems by Richard Barnfield which were printed for Jaggard’s brother John in 1598. If one accepts, as Quincy Adams and Colin Burrow do, that Thomas Judson printed O1, it could not have been printed earlier than September 1598 when Judson is known to have first set up his press. The date of 1598/9 is also attractive to some because it coincides with the year 1598 when Shakespeare is mentioned by Francis Meres in Palladis Tamia and when his name first began to appear on the title pages of printed editions of his plays and ‘all of a sudden, “Shakespeare” was a name that sold books’.4
O2 THE/PASSIONATE/PILGRIME./By W.Shakespeare./[Ornament]/AT LONDON/Printed for W. Iaggard, and are/to be sold by W.Leake.at the Grey- /hound in Paules Churchyard./1599 STC 22342 There are two extant copies one at Trinity College, Cambridge and one at the Huntington Library. The additional leaves in the Folger library copy mentioned above are from a copy of O2.Until the discovery of O1 in 1920 this was believed to be the first edition and since the title-page to the 1612 edition calls it the third edition and it had been assumed, incorrectly, that a second edition had been published at some time between 1599 and 1612, with no copies extant. The printer is unidentified on the title-page but Quincy Jones believed both O1 and O2 to have been the work of Thomas Judson (xxi-xxii), Burrow is clear that Judson printed O1, and remains silent on the printer of O2 (74) The Arden 3 editors accept Judson as the printer of O2 and think that O1 and O2 were the work of different printers (490 and 494).5 It is in octavo format and comprises 32 leaves. Pages are unnumbered and generally the first leaf of each gathering is signed and also A3, A4 and B3.There are no catchwords apart from one on sig. B8r.
4 Erne 2007, 57 . 5 In private correspondence February 2008 Henry Woudhuysen confirmed his view that ‘O1 and O2 were almost certainly set by different compositors and definitely printed in different printing offices.’ 271
The first leaf of O2 is blank apart from signature A, A2 carries the title-page, poems 1 to 14 are printed on the recto only (sig. A3 to C2), with the final stanza of 14 extending onto C2r. At C3r a second title-page is printed: SONNETS/To sundry notes of Musicke./[Ornament]/ AT LONDON/Printed for W. Iaggard, and are/to be sold by W.Leake, at the Grey-/hound in Paules Churchard./1599.
This matches the design of the first title-page. Poems 15 to 18 are printed on rectos only but the last two poems are printed on the rectos and versos of signatures D5 – 7 and D8 is left blank. This differs from O1 where poems 17, 18 are too long to be incorporated on a recto only the text runs over onto the verso6. As the Arden3 editors point out, if printing on rectos only had been maintained for O2, three more leaves including D8 would have been needed: the additional (presumably) half sheet) would then have only had text on two of its four leaves. The Arden3 editors conclude that that it was probably decided to be inconsistent in the layout of the last two poems in order to save paper. On each page the text is arranged between two sets of printer’s flowers, a single width strip above and a double width strip below. Unlike O1 the upper strips consist of a row of six printer’s flowers instead of the five in O1. It would seem that the intention was to make O2 very similar in appearance to O1 with type and flowers matching in style and size. In both O1 and O2 there appears there was some attempt to regularise the page depth of the text but ultimately this was determined by the number of lines of verse.
O3 THE/PASSIONATE/PILGRIME./OR/Certaine Amorous Sonnets,/betweene Venus and Adonis,/newly corrected and aug-/mented./By W. Shakespere./The Third edition./Where-unto is newly ad-/ded two Loue Epistles, the first from Paris to Hellen, and/Hellens answere backe/againe to Paris./Printed by W.Iaggard,/1612. STC22343 There are two extant copies one of O3, one in the Folger Library (with a title- page as set out above) and one in the Bodleian Library (bound with both the above title-page and also with another variant title-page omitting “By W. Shakespere”). This second title-page has been offered as evidence that Jaggard reacted to Heywood’s complaints in the address to Nichols Okes appended to his An Apology
6 Quincy Adams, xxx. 272 for Actors (1612) or to Shakespeare’s alleged annoyance at the misuse of his name on the title-page. Both title pages indicate that the printer was William Jaggard. It is in octavo format and consists of 64 leaves. The contents are essentially a reprint of O2 (sig. A3 – D4) and then added after this are nine long poems from Thomas Heywood’s Troia Britannica (sig. D5 – H7) placED them in a different order from that in Troia Britannica. The layout of the O2 text is varied in some instances: apart from the new title-page this includes a different ornament on the second title-page (C3r), an altered layout for poems 15 and 18 and other more minor differences. 7 The Arden3 editors’ note As the volume progressed, a decision seems to have been taken to abandon printing on rectos only: PP 18 (sigs D1r-“r) was set with three stanzas to the page rather than O2’s two on all pages of the poem apart from its last, and for the first time in O3 a verso was used; the whole of PP 19 was set on one page, a verso (sig. D2v), and PP 20 was set on rectos and versos as in O2, ending on sig. D4v.
Troia Britanica was published by Jaggard in 1609. It is a lengthy verse work, printed in folio format, which charts British history from the myths of the classical world, the story of Troy and the arrival of Brutus in Britain through to the reign of James I. It is organised into sixteen cantos each beginning with a rhymed ‘Argumentum’ usually followed by verses in eight line stanzas (varying in number but usually around the one hundred mark). The verse passages used in the 1612 PP usually occur at the end of some of the cantos. 1.‘Vulcan was Iupiter’s Smith…’ occurs at the end of Canto 5 (sig.V1 to X3 TB); 2. ‘How the Mynotaure was begot’ occurs at the end of Canto 7 ( sig.R3v to R4 TB) continuing on with 3.‘This mynotaure whe he came to groath…’ (sig.R4 to R5v TB). 4. ‘The amorous Epistle of Paris to Hellen’ forms the greater part of Canto 9 (sig.V1 to X3 TB) which only has three preceeding stanzas and 5. ‘ Hellen to Paris’ (sig. X5 to Yv TB) appears at the start of Canto 10, then follow fifty-two eight line stanzas before 6.‘That Menelaus was cause of his own wrongs…’ (sig. Z5 TB) appears followed by 7. ‘And in another place somewhat ressembling this…’ (sig Z5 to Z5v TB) all within Canto 10.
7 See Duncan-Jones and Woudhuysen, 495-6. 273
8.‘The Tale of Cephalus and Pocris’ appears at the end of Canto 11 (sig.Bb6v to Ccv TB) and 9. ‘Achilles concealment of his sex’ (sig. Ee2v to Ee3 TB) appears at the end of Canto 12. In the 1612 Pilgrim the Heywood extracts are given titles closely based on their Troia Britannica titles and are printed one after another in the following order: 4,5,6,7,8,1,2,3,9.
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APPENDIX 2 Belvedere I. Writers whose texts were used in Belvedere identified by Charles Crawford.
The number of identified texts from each writer is indicated in brackets. Author(s) of Arden of Faversham (10) Barnefield (8) Lyly (13), Bastard (1) Markham (27) Brandon (50) Marlowe (50) Byrd (2) Marston (5) ‘J.C’ (21) Middleton (20), Campion (2) Compiler of Mirror for Magistrates (31) Chapman (49) Countess of Pembroke (2) Churchyard (2) Compiler of the Rawlinson MS (6) Daniel (215) Roydon (1) Drayton (269) Shakespeare (214) Author(s) of Edward III (23) Sidney (6) Fitzgeoffrey (39) Southwell (75) Giles Fletcher (4) Spenser (215) Gascoigne (1) Storer (1) Author(s) of Gorboduc (12) Sylvester (36) Greene (41) Tuberville (20) Griffin (7) Watson (7) Guilpin (2) Whetstone (5), Harington (27) Whitney (1), Hudson (7 Compiler of Wits Commonwealth (680) Jonson (7) Compiler of Wits Theater (37) Kyd (49) Compiler of Wits Treasury (1). Lodge (79)
II. Extracts from Love’s Labour’s Lost to demonstrate the anthologist’s adaptations:
i) In the section ‘Of Wit and Wisdome’.
‘Short luied wits doe wither as they grow’ (sig.E2v)
accurately quotes 2.1.54, (sig B4v in Q1 LLL) omitting the first word in that line ‘Such’. This both makes the sentence pithier and, if ‘liued’ is two syllables, keeps the line at ten syllables.
ii) In the section ‘Of Beautie’. ‘Beautie doth varnish age, as if new borne’ (sig. D4v) is an accurate quotation of 4.3.242 (sig, F1v in Q1 LLL). In the same section the very
275 next line ‘Where faire is not, no boot to paint the brow’ (D4v) is an adaptation/misquotation of 4.1.17 (sig.D2v Q1 LLL) which reads ‘Where faire is not, praise cannot mend the brow’.
The changes suggest more than a transcription error and since both are ten syllable lines and it is harder to deduce the reasoning behind the adaptation, unless in the anthologist’s mind the changes make the line more general in application.
(iii) In the section ‘Of the Tongue &c’.
‘Foule payment for faire words is more than needs’ (Sig. M6r)
misquotes 4.1.19 (sig.D2v Q1 LLL)
‘Faire payment for foule words is more than dew’.
Arguably the substitution of ‘needs’ for ‘dew’ makes the sentence more general in application and the transposition of ‘faire’ and ‘foule’ could be the result of a transcription or compositorial error.
(iv) In the section ‘Of Youth’.
‘Youth hardly can obey an old decree’ (sig. P6v) misquotes 4.3.215 (sig. F1v Q1 LLL)
‘Young blood doth not obey an olde decree’.
The reason for the adaptation is again unclear; possibly the word ‘youth’ is substituted to tie the quotation more tightly to the section’s topic. In this way the anthologist of Belvedere worked as a collaborative writer, manipulating Shakespeare’s and other writers’ texts to make them his own for purposes of anthology.
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APPENDIX 3 Englands Parnassus
I. Writers whose texts were used in Englands Parnassus identified by Charles Crawford.
The number of identified texts from each writer is indicated in brackets.
Achelly (11) Kyd (23) Baldwin (included with The Mirror for Magistrates)Lodge (144) Bastard (12) Markham (47) Bryskett(2) Marlowe (34) Campion (3) Marston (17) Cavill (Mirror for Magistrates) Middleton C. (22) Chapman (84) Middleton T. (2) Churchyard (6) The Mirror for Magistrates (106) Constable (10) Nashe (2) Daniel (140) Peele (13) Sir John Davies (49) Phaer (Mirror for Magistrates) Dekker (19) Roydon (11) Dolman (Mirror for Magistrates) Sackville (Mirror for Magistrates) Drayton (221) King of Scotland (11) Fairfax (27) Shakespeare (96) Ferrers (Mirror for Magistrates) Sidney (55) Fitzgeoffrey (21) Storer (42) Fraunce (16)) Spenser (389) S.G. [?Stephen Gosson] (1) Earl of Surrey (Mirror for Magistrates) Gascoigne (47) Sylvester (124) Greene (32) Tottells Miscellany (18) Grimald (included with Tottells Miscellany) Turberville (8) Guilpin (7) Warner (169) Harington (140) Watson (27) Higgins (Mirror for Magistrates) Weever (13) Hudson (52) ‘I Authoris’ (1) Ignoto (2) Jonson (14)
NB.The large number of extracts from Weever led Crawford to suppose that he must have been a friend of Allott who was ‘only too eager to find places in his book for them, no matter what kind of rubbish he wrote’ [Crawford1913, viii.]
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II. Extracts from Shakespeare in Englands Parnassus,1600. I worked from the Early English Books Online Harvard copy and the incomplete British Library copy (Shelfmark 238.b.6) manually checked against the Senate House Library copy (Shelfmark [D.-L.L.] (XVI) B0c [Allott] SR). Section headings are in larger type. Occasionally passages are in italic, with no particular pattern, though italics do seem to be used when the passage refers to God or classical figures. On a few occasions at the end of a section the reader is referred to another section on an allied theme eg. p.161 at the end of the Knowledge section is printed “Vid. Learning”; p.68 at the end of Dissimulation “Vid. Hypocrisie” and p129 at the end of a short section Heart is printed “---Happinesse, vid. Felicitie”. The authorial attribution is given in smaller type and in italics – either as ‘W. Shakespeare’, ‘W. Sha’ or ‘Idem’. The poem or play from which extracts are taken is not indicated in the anthology. I indicate the section heading, page number and give the extract as in Englands Parnassus and details of the source text. 1. Angels p. 3 ------If Angels fight Weake men must fall, for heauen stil gards the right. Richard II 3.2.57-8 2. Affection p.7 Affection is a coale that must be coolde, Else suffered, it will set the heart on fire, The fire hath bounds, but deepe desire hath none. Venus and Adonis 387-8 3. Audacitie p.8 Things out of hope are compast oft with ventering, Chiefly in loue, whose leaue exceeds commission: Affection faints not like a pale fac’d coward, But then woes best, when most his choice is froward. Venus and Adonis 567-570 4. Auarice p.12 Those which much couet, are with gaine so fond, That what they haue not that which they possesse: They scatter and vnlooses from their bond. And so by hoping more, they have but lesse, Or gaining more, the profit of excesse Is but a surfet, and such griefes sustaine, That they proue bankrout in this pore rich vaine. Lucrece 127-133 [ “which” instead of “that” in l.127] 278
5. Beautie p. 14 All orators are dumbe where Bewtie pleadeth Lucrece 268 [“where” instead of “when] 6. p.14 Bewtie itselfe doth of’st selfe perswade The eyes of men, without an Orator: What needeth then Apollogies be made To set forth that which is so singular. Lucrece 29-32 7. Care p.24/5 Care keeps his watch in euery olde mans eye, And where Care lodges, sleepe will never lie: But where vnbruiz’d youth with vnstuft braine Coth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth raine. Romeo and Juliet 2.2.35-38. 8. Danger p.48 Danger deuiseth shifts: wit waits on feare Venus and Adonis 690 9. p.48 The path is smooth that leadeth vnto Daunger Venus and Adonis 788 10. Death p.54 ----the toongs of dying men Inforce attention like deep harmony, Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vaine: For they breath truth, that breath their words in paine. He that no more must say, is lissened more, Then they that whom youth & case haue taught to glose: More are mens ends markt, then their lives before. The setting sunne and musick at the close, As the last tast of sweet is sweetest tast, Writ in remembrance more then things long past. Richard II 2.1.5-14. 11. Delaie p.55 -----Fearfull tormenting Is leaden seruitor, to dull delay. Richard III 4.3.51-3 [“tormenting” instead of “commenting”] [p.56 Delay in loue breeds doubts, but sharpe deniall death. Wrongly attributed to W. Shakespeare – found in W. Warner] 12. Feare p.89 The gift being great the feare doth still exceed, And extreame feare can neither fight nor flie,
279
But cowardlike with trembling terror die. Lucrece 229-231 [“gift” instead of “guilt”] [13.Gifts p.108 A giuing hand tho’ foule shall have faire praise Wrongly attributed to S. Daniel – in fact from Love’s Labours Lost 4.1.23] [Gentlenesse p.109 Like as the gentle heart it selfe bewraies, In doing gentle deeds with francke delight: Euen so the baser minde it selfe displaies, In canckered malice, and reuenge for spight. Wrongly attributed to W. Shakespeare –found in Spenser] 14. Gluttonie p.111 Fat paunches have leane pates, and daintie bits Make rich the ribs, but bankrout quite the wits. Love’s Labours Lost 1.1.25/6 15. Good Name p.113 The purest treasure mortall times afford, Is spotlesse reputation, that away, Men are but gilded trunks, or painted clay. Richard II 1.1.177/9 [“trunks” instead of “loam”] 16. Grief p.123 An oven that is stopt, or Riuer staied, Burneth more hotely, swelleth with more rage: So of concealed Griefe it may be said, Free vent of words, loves fier doth assauge, But when hearts atturney is mute, The Client breakes, as desperate in his sute. Venus and Adonis 331-336 [ “griefe it” instead of “sorrow”] 17. p123 Griefe hath two tongues, and neuer woman yet Could rule them both, without tenn womans wit. Venus and Adonis 1007-8 18. p.124 Some griefe shewes much of loue, But much to griefe shewes still some want of wit. Romeo and Juliet 3.5.72-3. 19. p.124 True griefe is fond and testy as a childe, Who wayward once his moode with nought agrees, Old woes not infant sorrowes beare them milde, Continuance tames the one, the other wilde, Like an unpractiz’d swimmer plunging still
280
With too much labour drownes for want of skill. Lucrece 1094-9 20. p. 125 Paine paies the income of each precious thing Lucrece 334 21. Haste p.132 O rash false heat wrapt in repentance cold, Thy haste springs still blood, and nere growes old. Lucrece 48-9 [“blood” instead of “blasts”] 22. Hope p. 137 True hope is swift, and flies with swallowes wings, Kings it makes Gods, and meaner creatures Kings. Richard III 5.2.23-4. 23. Iealousie p.143 Where loue doth raigne, disturbing iealousie, Doth call himselfe affections Centinell, And in a peacefull houre, dooth crye kill,kill, Distempering gentle loue with his desire, As ayre and water dooth abate the fire: This found informer, this bare-breeding spie, This cancker that eates vp this tender spring, This carry-tale discentio’s iealousie Venus and Adonis 649-654 24. Iustice p. 154 --- Sparing iustice, feed iniquitie. Lucrece 1687 25. Kings p.155 The baser is he coming from a King, To shame his hopes with deeds degenerate: The mightier man, the mightier is the thing, That makes him honoued, or begets him hate: For greater scandall waits on greater state. The Moore being clouded, presently is mist, But little starres may hide them where they list. The Crowe may bathe his cole-blacke wing in mire, And vnpereiued, flie with the filth away, But if she like the snow white swan desire, The staine vpon his siluer downe will stay, Poore groomes a sightles nights, kings glorious day. Gnats are vnnoted wheresoeuer they flie, But Eagles are gaz’d vpon with euery eie. Lucrece 1002-1015 26. p.156
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Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balme from an anoynted King: The breath of wordly men cannot depose The deputie elected by the Lord Richard II 3.2.50-53. 27. p. 157 -----No outragious thing, From vassall actors can be wipte away, The Kings misdeeds can not be hid in clay. Lucrece 607 28. Lechery p.164 Love comforteth like sun-shine after raine, But lusts effect, is tempest after sunne: Loues gentle spring doth alwaies fresh remaine, Lusts winter comes ere sommer halfe be donne. Loue surfets not, but like a glutton dies, Love is all truth, lust full of forced lies Venus & Adonis 799-804 29. p. 164 O deeper sinne then bottomlesse conceit Can comprehend in still imagination: Drunken desire must vomit his receipt, Ere he can see his own abhomination: While lust is in his pride, no exclamation Can cure his heate, or raigne his rash desire, Till like a Iade, self-will himself do tire. Lucrece 701-707 30. Loue p.171 ------Loue to heauen is fled, Since sweating lust on earth vsurpt his name, Vunder whose simple sembalnce he hath fled Vpon fresh bewtie blotting it with blame, Which the hot tyrant staines, and soone bereaues, As caterpillers, do the tender leaues. Venus and Adonis 793–798 31. p.172 Loue is a spirit all compact of fier, Not grosse to sinke, but light and will aspire. Venus and Adonis 149/50 32. p.173 Loue is a smoake made with fume of sighes, Being purg’d, a fier sparkling in louers eies. Being vex’d, a sea, nourisht with louing teares, What is it else? A madness most distrest,
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A choaking gall, and a preseruing sweeet. Romeo and Juliet 1.1.187-191. 33. p. 176 ---brawling loue, O louing hate, O anything of nothing first created: O heaviuie lightnesse, serious vanitie, Mishapen Chaos of well seeing formes, Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fier, sickness, helth, Still waking sleepe, that is not what it is. Romeo and Juliet 1.1.173-178.
[Most true it is that true love hath no power To looken back, his eye be fixt before. Wrongly attributed W. Sha. – found in Spenser]
34. p.180 Loue keeps his reuels where there are but twaine. Venus and Adonis 123 35. p .182 O bold beleeuing loue, how hote it seemes, Not to beleeue, and yet too credulous: Thy weake and woe are both of them extreames, Dispaire and hope make thee ridiculous. The one doth flatter the in thoughts vnlikely, The likely thoughts the other killeth quickly. Venus and Adonis 985-90 36. p.182 Loue goes towards loue, as schoole boyes from their bookes, But loue from loue toward schoole with heauy lookes. Romeo and Juliet 2.1.201-202. 37. p.182 --- Loue can comment vpon euery woe Venus and Adonis 714 38. p.185 ---- The sweetest honey, Is loathsome in his owne deliciousnesse, And in the taste confounds the appetite, Therefore Loue moderately long loue doth so, Too swift arriues as tardie as too slowe. Romeo and Juliet 2.5.11-15. 39. p.189 Against loues fier feares frost hath dissolution Lucrece 355
283
40. p.190 Loue thriues not in the heart, that shadowes dreadeth Lucrece 270 41. p. 190 O learne to loue, the lession is but plaine, And once made perfect, neuer lost againe. Venus and Adonis 407-8 [p. 191 The Louer and beloued are not tied to one Loue Wrongly attributed to W. Sh.- found in W. Warner] 42. p.192 Foule word and frownes must not repell a Louer, What though the Rose hath prickles, yet tis pluckt, Were bewtie vnder twentie locks kept fast, Yet Loue breakes through, and breakes them all at last. Venus and Adonis 573-6 43. p.192 ---Louers houres are long, though seeming short, If pleasde themselues, others they delight: In such like circumstance, with such like sport, Their copious stories often times begun, End without audience, and are neuer done. Venus and Adonis 842-6 44. p.192 A louer may bestride the Gossamours, That idles in the wanton sommer aire, And yet not full so light is vainitie. Romeo and Juliet 2.5.18-20. 45. Miserie p. 204 --- Miserie is troden on by many, But being lowe, neuer relieu’d by any. Venus and Adonis 707-8 46. & 47 p. 207 Softe pittie enters at an Iron gate Mercie but murder, pardoning those that kill.
Idem (referring to S. Daniell above but attributed to W. Sh. in RH margin) First line is from Lucrece 595: second line from Romeo & Juliet 3.1.195 48. Nature p 217 ---Markes descried in mens nativitie, Are natures faults, not their owne infamie. Lucrece 538-9
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49. Opportunitie p 222 Opportunitie thy guilt is great, Tis thou that execut’st the traitors treason, Thou setst the wolfe where he the lambe may get, Who euer plots the sinne, thou points the season, Tis thou that spurn’st at right, at lawiers reason: And in thy shady cell where none may spie him, Sits sinne, to feare each soule that wanders by him. Lucrece 876-82 50. Pleasure p.229 ----Reuels, daunces, maskes and merry howers, Forerun faire loue, strowing her way with flowers. Love’s Labours Lost 4.3.355-6. 51. Policie p 241 A little harme done to a great good end, For lawfull policie remaines inacted, The pysonous simple sometimes is compacted In a pure compound; being so applied His renome in effect is purified. Lucrece 528-32 52. p.246 --- Princes are the glasse, the schoole, the booke Where suiects eies do liue, do read, do looke’ [Wrongly attributed Idem to W. Warner in fact from Lucrece 615-6] 53. Princes p.248 Princes haue but their titles for their glories, An outward honor for an inward toyle: And for vnfelt imagination They often feele a world of restlesse cares. So that betwixt their titles and low name Their’s nothing differs but the outwards fame. Richard III 1.4.74-79 54. Sight p.261 Often the eye mistakes, the braine being troubled. Venus and Adonis 1068 55. Of Sorrow p.279 Sorrow breakes seasons and reposing howres, Makes the night morning and the noone tide night. Richard III 1.4.72-73 56. p. 279 Sad sorrow like a heauie ringing bell, Once set in ringing, with his own weight goes,
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Then little strength rings out the dolefull knel. Lucrece 1493-5 57. p.280 Fell sorrowes tooth neuer ranckles more Then when it bites, but toucheth not the sore. [Wrongly attributed to S. Daniel in fact from Richard II 1.3.265-6] 58. p.280 ---Snarling sorrow hath less powre to bite The man that mocks at it, and sets it light. [Wrongly attributed to ‘Ed. Spencer’ in fact from Richard II 1.3.292] 59. p.280 Mirth doth search the bottom of annoy, Sad soules are slain in mirthie companie, Greefe best is pleasde with griefs True sorrow then is feelingly [Wrongly attributed to Th. Dekkar in fact from Lucrece 1109-1112] 60. Teares p.282 Teares harden lust, though marble weare with raine. Lucrece 560 61. Thoughts p.283 Thoughts are the slaues of life, and life times foole, And time that takes a suruey of all the world Must haue a stop. 1 Henry IV 5.4.80-82 62. Thoughts p.283 Thoughts are but dreames, till their effects be tried. Lucrece 353 63. p.284 Vnstained thoughts do seldome dreame on euil, Birds neuer limde no secret bushes feare. Lucrece 87-8 64. Time p.284 Mishapen Time, coapsmate of vgly night, Swift wubtill poast, carrier of grislie care, Eater of youth, false slaue to false delight, Base watch of woes, sinnes packhorse, vertues snare, Thou nursest all, and murtherest all that are. Lucrece 925 –9 65. p.286 Times glory is to calme contending kings, To vnmaske falshood, and bring truth to light,
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To stampe the seale of time in aged things, To wake the morne, and sentinell the night, To wrong the wronger till hee render right: To ruinate proude buildings with his howres, And smeare with dust their glittering golden towres, To fill with worm holes stately monuments, To feede oblvion with decay of things, To blot old Bookes, and alter their contents, To pull the quilles from anncient Rauens wings, Tp drie the old okes sappe, and cherish springs To spoyle antiquities of hammered steele, And turne the giddie round of fortune’s wheele, To shew the Beldame daughter of her daughters, To made the child a man, the man a child, To slay the tyger that doth liuely slaughter, To tame the vnicorne and lyon wilde, To make the subtill in themseules geguild, To sheere the plow-man with increasfull crops, And waste huge stones with little water-drops. Lucrece 939-959 66. Treason p. 288 ---Treason is but trusted like the foxe, Who nere so tamde, so sherisht, and lockt vp, Will haue a wilde tricke of his auncetors. 1 Henry IV 5.2.9-11 67. Vertue p. 291 Vertue itselfe turnes vice, being misapplyed, And vice sometime by action dignified. Romeo and Juliet 2.2.21-2. 68. p. 293 What vertue breedes, iniquitie deuours, We have no good at all that we can say is ours, But ill annexed opportunitie, Or killes his life or else his qualitie. Lucrece 872-5 69. Use p.297 Foule cankering rust the hidden treasure frets, But gold that’s put to use, more gold begets. Venus and Adonis 767-8 70. Woe p.306 Short time seemes long in sorrowes sharp sustaining, Though woe be heauie, yet it seldome sleepes, And they that watch see time how slow it creepes. Lucrece 1573-5
287
71. p.306 ------Fellowship in woe, doth woe asswage, As palmers that make short their pilgrimage. Lucrece 790-1 72. p.306 Tis double death to drowne in ken of shore, He ten times pines, that pines behoulding food: To see the salue doth make the wound ake more, Great griefes greeue most at that would do it good, Deere woes rowle forwarde like a gentle flood: Who being stopt, the bounden bankes ore floes, Greefe dallied with, not law not limmit knows Lucrece 1114 –20 73. p.306 Distresse like dumps, when time is kept with teares. Lucrece 1127 74. Words p.307 ---Words Windie atturnies of our clyent woes, Ayery succeeders of intestate joyes, Poore breathing orators of miseries. Let them have scope, though what it doth impart Helpe not at all, yet doth it ease the heart. Richard III 4.4.126-131. 75. p.307 ---Few words shall fit the trespasses best, Where no excuse can giue the fault amending. Lucrece 1613-4 76. p.307 Deepe sounds make better noyse than shallow fords, And sorrow ebbes being blown with wind of words. Lucrece 1329-30 77. Women p.311 ----Men haue Marble, women waxen minds And therefore are they form’d as Marble will, The weake opprest, th’impression of strange kindes, Is form’d in them by force, by fraude, or skill, Then call no them the Authors of their ill, No more then waxe shall be accounted euill, Wherein is stampt the semblance of the diuell. Their smoothenesse like a goodly champaine plaine, Laies open all the little wormes that creepe, In men as in a rought growen groue remaine,
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Caue-keeping euilles, that obscurely sleepe, Through cristall walles each little moule will peepe, Though men can couer minds with bold stern looks Pale womens faces are their owne faults Bookes: No man inueyes against the withered flower, But chides rough winter that the flower hath kild, Not that deuoured, but that which doth deuour, Is woorthie blame, O let it not be hild, Poore womens faults, that they are so fulfil’d, With mens abuses those prouide loves to blame, Make weake-made women tenants to their shame. Lucrece 1240-1260 78. p313 Women may fall, when there’s no strength in men. Romeo and Juliet 2.2.80 79. The diuision of the day naturall Diliculum p. 327 Night candles are burnt out, and iocund day, Stands tiptoe on the mistie mountaines top. Romeo and Juliet 3.5.9-10. 80. The diuision of the day naturall Mane p.327 Now sullen night with slow sad pace descended To vgly hell, when loe the blushing morrow Lends light to all faire eyes that light will borrow. Lucrece 1081-3 [“sullen” in stead of “solemn”] 81. p.327 Loe now the gentle Larke wearie of rest From his moyst cabynet mounts vpon hie, And wakes the morning from whose silver breast, The sunne ariseth in his maiestie; Who doth the world so gloriously behold, That cedar top and hilles seem’d burnisht gold Venus and Adonis 853-858 82. p.328 The gray-eyde morne smiles on the frowning night, Cheering the easterne cloudes with streams of light, And darknesse flected like a drunkard reeles, From forth dayes path-way made by Titans wheels. Romeo and Juliet 2.2.1-4 83. Vesper p.334 Now the worlds comforter with wearie gate, His dayes hot taske hath ended in the West, The owle (nights harauld) shreakes, tis verie late, The sheep are gone to fild, the birds to nest,
289
The cole-black cloudes that shadow heauens light Do summon vs to parte and bid good night. Venus and Adonis 529-34 84. p. 348 This royall throne of Kings, … stubburne Iewrie [Wrongly attributed to M. Dr. in fact Richard II 2.1.40-55]
[August p.369 That time of yeere when the inamoured sunne, Clad in the richest roabes of liuing fires, Courted the Virgin signe, great Natures Nunne, Which barraines earth, of all that earth desires: Euen in the month that from Augustus wone His sacred name which unto heauen aspires, And on the last of his tentrebled dayes. Wrongly attributed to W. Shakespeare – found in Gervaise Markham] 85.Of an Horse Round hoof’d , short joynted, fetlocks shag and long, Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostrils wide, High crest, short eares, straite leggs and passing strong, Thin maine, thick tale, broad buttock, tender hide Looke what an horse should haue he did not lacke, Saue a proud rider or; so proud a backe. Venus and Adonis 294-300 86. Descriptions of Beautie & personages p.396/7 Her Lilly hand her rosie cheekes lie vnder Coosning the pillow of a lawfull kisse, Who therefore angry, seemes to part in sunder, Swelling on eyther side to want his blisse, Betweene whose hills her heart entombed is; Where like a vertuous monument she lyes, To be admirde of lewd vnhallowed eyes. Without the bed her other fayre hand was On the greene Couerlet, whose perfect white Shewd like an Aprill daisie on the grasses, With pearlie sweat, resembling dewe of night, Her eyes like Marigolds had sheath’d theyr light; And canopied in darknes sweetly lay Till they might open to adorne the day. Her haire like golden threds,play’d with her breath, (O modest wantons, wanton modestie) Shewing lifes tryumph in the Map of death And deaths dim lookes in lifes mortalitie; Each in her sleepe themselues to beautifie As if betweene them twaine there were no strife, But that life liu’d in death, and death inlife. Her breasts like iuory globes circled with blew,
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A payre of mayden worlds vnconquoered, Saue of theyr Lord, no bearing yoke they knew, And him by oath they truly honoured: These world in Tarquin new ambition bred Who like a foule vsurper went about From this faire throne to heaue the owner out. Lucrece 386-413 87. p. 407 O shee doth teach the torches to burn bright, It seemes she hangs vpon the cheeke of night As a rich iewell in an Ethiops eare, Beauty to rich for vse, for earth too deare: So showes a snowy Doue trooping with crowes, As yonder Lady ore her fellowes showes. Romeo and Juliet 1.5.43-48 88. Poeticall Comparisons Dalliance p.423 Euen as an emptie Eagle sharpe by fast, Tires with her beake on feather, flesh and bone, Shaking her wings, deuouring all in hast, Till eyther gorge be stuft, or pray be gone, Euen so she kist his brow, his cheeke, his chin And where she ends, she doth anew begin. Venus and Adonis 55-60 89. Sorrow p.424/5 As through an arch the violent roaring tide Out-runnes the eye that doth behold his hast, Yet in the Edie boundeth in his pride Backe to the straite that force him so fast, In rage sent out, recald in rage being past: Euen so his sighes, his sorroes make a saw, To push greefe on, and back the same greefe draw. Lucrece 1667-1673 90. Loue p.431 Looke as the faire and fiery-poynted sunne Rushing from forth a cloude bereaues our sight Euen so the curtaine drawne, his eyes begun To winke, being blinded with a greater light. Lucrece 372-5 91. Feare p. 431 --- he shakes aloft his Romaine blade, Which like a faulchion towring in the skies Coucheth the foule below with his wings shade, Whoose crooked beake threats, if he mount, he dies: So vnder his insulting fauchion lyes
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Harmeless Lucretia marking what he tells With trembling feare, as foule heares faulchons bells. Lucrece 505-11 92. p.431/2 As the poore frighted Deer that stand at gaze Wildly determining which way to flie, Or one incompast with a winding maze, That cannot tread the way out readily, So with her selfe she growes in mutinie To liue or die which of the twaine were better When life is sham’d, and deaths reporches better. Lucrece 1149-1155 93. p.432 Like as the Snayle, whose hornes being once hit, Shrinks in his shelly case with paine, And there all smoothred vp in shade doth sit, Long after fearing to creepe forth againe: So at his bloody view her eyes are fled Into the deepe dark cabbins of her head Venus and Adonis 1033-8 94 Hope p. 446 This ill presage aduisedly she marketh, Euen as the winde is husht before it raineth, Or as the Wolfe doth grin before he barketh, Or as the berry breakes before it staineth, Or like the deadly bullet of a gunne, His meaning strooke her ere his words begun. Venus and Adonis 457-63 95.Night p. 451 Looke how a bright starre shooteth from the skie, So glides he is the night from Venus eye. Which after him she darts as on a shore, Gazing vpon a late embarquered frend, Till the wild waues will haue them see no more, Whose ridges with the meeting cloudes contend. So did the mercilesse and pitchy night Fold in the obiect that did feed her sight. Venus and Adonis 815-822
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APPENDIX 4 Englands Helicon
I. Writers whose texts were used in Englands Helicon, 1600 according to Hugh Macdonald’s edition of England’s Helicon.8
The number of texts from each writer is indicated in brackets.
T.B. (1) Marlowe (1) Barnfield (4) T. Morley (3) E. Bolton (5) A.Munday/ ‘Sheepheard Tonie’(7)* N. Breton (8) N.H. Nowell (1) Fulke Greville (3) Earl of Oxford (1) C. Brooke (1) G.Peele (3) W. Brown (1) Walter Raleigh (5) W. Byrd (4) W.S.[mith] (1) C.H. [Chettle] (4) Shakespeare (1) Earl of Cumberland (1) Philip Sidney (15) J.D.[ickenson]/I.M. (3) E.Spenser (3) J. Dowland (4) Earl of Surrey (2) M. Drayton (4) A.W. (6) E.Dyer (5) T. Watson (5) I.G. (1) John Wooton (2) R. Greene (7) B. Young (24) T. Lodge (15 N. Young (3)
*See Celeste Turner Wright, ‘Anthony Mundy and the Bodenham Miscellanies’ (Philological Quarterly, 40.4, 1961), for a discussion of the identity of ‘Sheepheard Tonie’.
II. The identity of the anthologist of Englands Helicon In his edition of 1949 Hugh Macdonald follows Bullen, Hebel and Rollins in claiming that although it is customary to attribute Helicon to Bodenham, the editor was almost certainly Nicholas Ling.
The prefatory sonnet to John Bodenham (sig. A3r) and the dedication to Nicholas Wanton and George Faucet (Sig. A3v) are by A.B. In the sonnet A.B. refers to Englands Helicon as Bodenham’s and the work which completes his (Bodenham’s) design: Now comes thy Helicon, to make compleate And furnish thy last imposed designe.
8 Hugh Macdonald, Englands Helicon, edited from the edition of 1600, with additional poems from the edition of 1614 (London: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1949). 293
However, there is no statement suggesting that the actual collector of the poems was Bodenham and A.B. also seems to be taking some responsibility for the compilation for in the same poem he refers to ‘My paines herein…’ and in the dedication he comments ‘Helicon, though not as I could wish, yet in such good sort as time would permit…’. The book contains five previously unprinted poems by Drayton and Ling was associated with Drayton. The address to the reader (sig. A4 r/v) is signed L.N, arguably Nichols Ling’s initials somehow transposed. If the writer of the address was Ling, references in it to ‘the Collector’ are in the third person rather than in the first person indicating that he did not collect the material or that he is writing about himself in the third person (although elsewhere in the address he uses the first person pronoun).
III. The question of attribution in Englands Helicon In the 1600 edition of Englands Helicon L.N.’s address ‘To the reader, if indifferent’ (sig. A4r/v) is of interest regarding the question of attribution and for its consideration as to how an anthology should be arranged. L.N. is concerned with the questions of ownership of the texts printed, with the rights of both the poets and those who had the right to print or who had previously printed the texts used. Hugh Macdonald estimated that about three-quarters of the poems had been printed previously. The anthologist’s potential problem arises from the use of the texts of living authors and the use of complete poems or longer extracts than those found in the commonplace book type of anthology. To potentially aggrieved stationers he argues that his use is no different to the use of commonplaced extracts in writing.
Nowe, if any Stationer shall finde faulte, that his Coppies are robd by anything in this Collection, let me ask him this question, Why more in this, then in any Diuine or humaine Authour:From wence a man (writing of that argument) shal gather any saing, sentence, simile, or example, his name put to it who is the Author of the same.
To potentially aggrieved authors he excuses himself since he has acted in good faith and the texts were delivered to him (either in print or manuscript, ‘at large, or in letter’) so attributed.
No one thing beeing placed here by the Collector of the same vnder any mans name, eyther at large, or in letter, but as it was deliuered by some especiall copy coming to his hands.
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L.N. also cleverly argues that the advantage of public/printed misattribution is that the aggrieved poet can publicly challenge this.
If any man hath beene defrauded of any thing by him composed, by another mans title put to the same, hee hath this benefit by this collection, freely to challenge his own in publique, where els he might be robd of his proper due. The writer of the address to the reader, ‘L.N’., is aware of a potential class problem arising from the arrangement and the mix of poems from aristocrats like Greville and Oxford, whose work might be expected to circulate in private manuscript, and professional writers from humbler backgrounds. To counter any notion that a poet’s words somehow stand for the man, he makes clear that it is the mind of the poet that the reader encounters and in that field social class plays no part. Further, if any man whatsoeuer, in prizing of his own birth or fortune shall take in scorne that a far meaner man in the eye of the world, shal be placed by him: I tell him plainly whatsoeuer so excepting, that, that mans wit is set by his, not that man by him. In which degree the names of Poets (all feare and dutie ascribed to her great and scared Name) haue beene place with the names of the greatest Princes of the world, by the most autenique and worthiest judgements, without disparagement to their soueraigneties: which if any man taking exception thereat, in ignorance know not, I hold him unworthy to be placed by the meanest this graced with the title of a Poet. (Sig. 4r/v)
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APPENDIX 5 Loves Martyr, 1601.
I. Editions of Loves Martyr The 1601 edition was printed in London for Edward Blount and three copies survive. An incomplete copy (lacking a title page) which belonged to Frances Wolfreston is in the National Library of Wales, there is a copy in the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington and one in the Huntington Library in California. The full title is LOVES MARTYR:/OR,/ROSALINS COMPLAINT./Allegorically shadowing the truth of Loue,/ in the constant Fate of the Phoenix/ and Turtle./ A Poeme enterlaced with much varietie and raritie;/ now first translated out of the venerable Italian Torquato/ Caeliano, by ROBERT CHESTER./ With the true legend of famous King Arthur, the last of the nine/ Worthies, being the first Essay of a new Brytish Poet: collected/ out of diuerse Authenticall Records./ To these are added some new compositions, of seuerall moderne Writers/ whose names are subscribed to their seuerall workes, upon the/ first subiect: viz. the Phoenix and Turtle. It is now believed, and the signatures support this, that the unsold copies of the 1601 volume were re-issued in 1611, several years after Chester’s death, and printed in London for Mathew Lownes under a different title: The Anuals of great Brittaine. Or, A MOST EXCEL-/lent Monument, wherein may be/ seene all the antiquities of this King-/ dome, to the satisfaction both of the/ Vniuersities, or any other place stir-/red with Emulation of long/ continuance / Excellently figured out in a worthy Poem, ). Only one copy of this edition survives and is in the British Library ( BL shelf mark C.39.c.44). This second edition, a publisher’s creation hoping to capitalise on a fashion for antiquarian works on British monuments, discards the 1601 dedication to Sir John Salisbury and Chester’s prefatory poems. There has only been one further edition of Loves Martyr, Alexander Grosart’s 1878 inaccurate ‘facsimile’ edition for the New Shakspere Society: Robert Chester’s Loves Martyr, or Rosalin’s Complaint (1601)…, (London: N. Trubner & Co., 1878). In 1865 J.O. Halliwell published privately twenty-five copies of Some account of Robert Chester’s Loves Martyr or Rosalins Complaint, a very rare volume published in 1601…including a remarkable poem by Shakespeare [entitled ‘Threnos’], (London, 1865), which included facsimiles of the ‘Diverse Poeticall Essaies’.
296
The ‘Poeticall Essaies’ were again reprinted in 1937 in the Shakespeare Head (Quarto series no.7), ‘The Phoenix and Turtle’ By William Shakespeare, John Marston, George Chapman, Ben Jonson and others (Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 1937). A facsimile of the ‘Poetical Essays’ is appended to the 2007 Arden3 Shakespeare’s Poems.
II. John Benson’s use of ‘The Phoenix and Turtle’ in Poems by Wil. Shake- speare Gent., 1640. Here the poem was untitled and positioned towards the end of the book in a miscellaneous group with Marlowe’s The Passionate Shepheard to his Love, The Nimph’s reply to the shepheard (attr. Raleigh), Another of the same nature (all apparently taken from Englands Helicon), and ‘Take, O take those lips away’. Benson follows ‘the Phoenix and Turtle’ with ‘Why should this a desart be’ (lines from As You Like It) and three poems on the death of Shakespeare. In Benson’s anthology the poem loses its stanza structure and undergoes a number of minor typographical changes in spelling and capitalisation; the only significant misprints (or editorial changes) are ‘lowest’ instead of ‘lowdest’ in line 1 and ‘but in’ replacing ‘Division’ in line 27. The threnos is separated from the rest of the poem by a horizontal dividing line and the title ‘Threnes’ (sic). In this at least it mimics the way the poem was originally presented in Loves Martyr, where the Threnos begins on a new page (Z4v) separated from the preceding stanzas with a double line of printer’s flowers.
III. Summary of the content of Loves Martyr, 1601
NB. All text in verse unless specified.
Title Page LOVES MARTYR/ OR,/ ROSALINS COMPLAINT /Allegorically shadowing the truth of Loue,/ in the constant Fate of the Phoenix/ and Turtle.’ A Poeme enterlaced with mauch varietie and rarite;/ now first translated out of the venerable Italian Torquato/ Caeliano, by ROBERT CHESTER./ With the true legend of King Arthur, the last of the nine/ Worthies, being the first Essay of a new Brytish Poet collected/out of diuerse Authenticall Records./ to these are added some new compositions of seuerall moderne Writers/ whose names a subscribed to their seuerall workes, vpon the/ first Subiect: viz. The Phoenix and/ Turtle./ Mar: --- Mutare dominum non potest liber notus/ [ORNAMENT] / LONDON/ Imprinted for E.B./ 1601.
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Sig. A3r/A3v Prose Dedication ‘To the honorable, and (of me before all other) honored Knight, Sir John Salisburie…
A4r ‘The Authors request to the Phoenix’ R.Chester – 12 lines (ababcc x 2) ‘dedicating’ the book to the phoenix.
A4v ‘To the kind Reader’ R.Ch. – 12 lines (ababcc x 2)
B1r-C2v ‘ROSALINS COM-/PLAINT, METAPHORICA-/cally applied to Dame Nature at a Parlia-/ment held (in the hig Star-Chamber) by the / Gods, for the preservation and increase of/ Earths beauteous Phoenix.
48 six line stanzas (ababcc) – this is the verse pattern unless another is specified.
C2v-C3r An Introduction to the Prayer . 2 six line stanzas
C3r-C4r A Prayer made for the prosperite of/ a silver coloured Doue, applied to the/ beauteous Phoenix. 7 six-line stanzas.
C4r-C4v ‘To those of light beleefe’. 3 six-line stanzas
C4v-F1v A meeting Dialogue-wise betweene Na-/ture, the phoenix and the Turtle Dove. 63 six-line stanzas.
F1v-L3r Here Followeth the Birth, Life/ and Death of honourable Arthur/ King of Brittaine
Divided as follows:-
F1v-F2r Prose: To the courteous Reader.
F2v-G4v Verse: The strange Birth, honorable Coro-/nation and most vnhappie Death of/famous Arthur King of Bry-/taine. 57 six-line stanzas.
The Coronation of King Arthur, and/ the solemnitie therof: the proud message/ of the Romans, and the whole resolution of King/ Arthur and his Nobles. H1r-H1v. 8 six-line stanzas.
The Epistle of Lucius Tiberius the/ Romane Lieutenant, to Arthur/ King of Britanie. H2r-H3r 54 lines blank verse attributed to ‘Lu. Tib.’
Cador the Dukeof Cornewaile his/ Oration to the King. H3r-H3v 30 lines blank verse attributed ‘Ca.Cor.’
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The Oration of King Arthur to his Lordes/and Followers H3v-H4v 63 lines blank verse attributed ‘K. Arthur’.
The Answer of Howell King/ of litle Brytaine. H4v-I1r 58 lines blank verse attributed ‘How. K. of Brit.’
Argusel King of Albania his/ Answere to the King I1v-I2r 33 lines blank verse attributed ‘An. K. Ab.’
I2v-L2v The‘Birth Life and Death of honorable Arthur King of Brittaine’ is continued in verse. At sig. L2r/v is inset the Latin epitaph on Arthur’s tomb and a translation of the same. L2v Verse: The true Pedigree of that famous/ Worthie King Arthur collected/ out of many learned Authors L3r Here endeth the Birth, Life, Death, and Pedigree of/King Arthur of Britanie, & now, to where we left.
L3r- S3v Continuation of the ‘Dialogue’ between Nature, the phoenix and the turtle-dove in 217 six-line stanzas. Interspersed as follows:- L3v-L4r Here Nature singeth to this dittie following. L4r-v The Phoenix her Song to the Dittie before. S2r FINIS R.C. S2r-S3r Pellican 56 lines of couplets
S3r-S3v Conclusion 28 lines of couplets FINIS R.C.
Then follow two groups of acrostic verses: S3v-T2v Cantoes Alphabet-wise to the faire Phoe-/ nix made by the Paphian Dove. 24 seven-line verses each numbered and headed with a letter of the alphabet (excluding J and U) in which the first word in each line begins with the letter in the heading.
T3r-Y4r Cantoes Verbally written. Short verses numbered 1 to 34, of variable length. Each has a title and each line starts with the a word from the title, taken in the order they appear. The interspersed is an untitled poem comprising 5 four-line stanzas. Then follow a further 14 ‘verbally written’ short verses as before, but this time they are not numbered.
Z1r Title page:
299
HEREAFTER/ FOLLOW DIVERSE/Poeticall Essaies on the former Sub-/ iect; viz the Turtle and Phoenix./ Done by the best and chiefest of our/ moderne writers, with their names sub-/ scribed to their particular workes: neuer before extant./And (now first) consecrated by them all generally,/ to the loue and merite of the true-noble Knight,/ Sir John Salisburie./ Dignum laude virum Musa vetas mori/[ORNAMENT]/ MDCI.
Z2r Invocatio Ad Apollinem & Pierides. attr. Vatum Chorus.
Z2v To the worthily honor’d Knight Sir Iohn Salisburie attr. Vatum Chorus. Z3r The first
The Burning attr. Ignoto.
NB. Lines 6 and 8 are marked with marginal commonplace commas(“): ‘ “ The flame that eates her, feedes the other life:’ ‘ “ One Phoenix born, another Phoenix burne.’
Z3v-Z4r ‘Let the bird of lowdest lay…’
Z4v Threnos attr. William Shake-speare
Aa1r A narration and description of a most exact wondrous creature, arising out of the Phoenix and Turtle Doves ashes.
Aa1v The description of this Perfection
Aa2v-Aa2r To Perfection. A Sonnet.
Aa2r- Aa2v Perfectioni Hymnus attr. Iohn Marston
Aa2v Peristeros: or the male Turtle attr. George Chapman. NB. Lines 8, 11 and 12 are marked with marginal commonplace markers:
‘ “ Loues fires, staid Iudgemẽts blow, not humorous Passions,’
‘ “(Nought lasts that doth to outward worth contend,’
‘ “ Al Loue in smooth browes born is tomb’d in wrinkles.)’
Aa3r-Aa3v Praeludium.
Aa3v-Bb1v Epos attr. Ben Iohnson. NB. Lines 1 -4, 17-18, 52, 65-68 and 94 are marked with marginal commonplace commas:
300
‘ “ Not to know Vice at all, and keepe true state, “Is Vertue; and not Fate: “Next to that Vertue, is to know Vice well, “And her balcke spight to expel.’
“Tis the securest Pollicie we haue, “To make our Sense our Slaue.
‘ “ Turtles can chastely die;’
‘ “ He that for love of goodnesse hateth ill, “Is more Crowne-worthy still, “Then he which for sinnes penaltie forbears, “ His heart sinnes, though he feares.)’
‘ “ Man may securely sinne, but safely neuer.’
Bb1v The Phoenix Analysde
Bb1v Ode attr. Ben: Iohnson FINIS
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APPENDIX 6 Shakespeare in Print 1616-1700
(i) Folio Editions of the plays: 1623, 1632, 1663/4, 1685
(ii) Editions of the Poems: Venus and Adonis: 1617, 1620, 1627, 1630, 1630-6(?), 1636, 1675. Lucrece: 1616,1624,1632,1655
(iii) Quarto Editions of individual plays: 1Henry IV 1622, 1632, 1639 Othello. 1622, 1630, 1655, 1687,1681, 1695 Richard III 1622, 1629, 1634 Romeo and Juliet 1622, 1637, Hamlet 1625, 1637, 1676 x 2, 1683, 1695 The Merry Wives of Windsor 1630 Pericles 1630 x 2, 1635 Love’s Labour’s Lost 1631 The Taming of the Shrew 1631 Richard II 1634 The Two Noble Kinsmen 1634 The Merchant of Venice 1637, 1652 King Lear 1655 Macbeth 1673 Julius Caesar 1684, 1691, 1695
The Pavier Quartos 1619 [Henry V, 2Henry VI, King Lear, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Pericles, Sir John Oldcastle, The Yorkshire Tragedy.]
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APPENDIX 7 The Wits, or Sport upon Sport
I. Editions of The Wits and associated publications (i) Acteon & Diana: With A Pastoral Storie of the Nimph Oenone: followed by the several Conceited Humours of Bumpkin the Huntsman. Hobbinal the Shepherd. Singing Simpkin and John Swabber the Seaman. By Rob. Cox. Acted at the Red Bull with great applause. The second Edition, with the Addition of Simpleton the Smith, not before extant. (London, 1656).
In 1655/6, four of the drolls in Part I had apparently been printed for Edward Archer and were re-issued in 1656 with the addition of another piece (‘Simpleton’) both times under the title Acteon and Diana. The 1656 title page attributes the drolls to Robert Cox and the volume carries a preface by him. (ii) The merry conceited humours of Bottom the weaver. As it hath often been publikely acted by some of his majesties comedians, and lately, privately, presented, by several apprentices for their harmless recreation, with great applause. (London, 1661).
This droll was printed separately in 1661 for Kirkham and Marsh and is also found in the 1673 ‘Part II’. (iii) The Wits, or, Sport upon Sport. In Select Pieces of Drollery, Digested into Scenes by way of Dialogue. Together with Variety of Humours of several nations, fitted for the pleasure and content of all persons, either in Court, City, country, or Camp. The like never before Published, Part I. (London, 1662).
Twenty-seven drolls were printed for Henry Marsh in 1662 (octavo) under the title The Wits, or Sport upon Sport. The address ‘To the Readers’ is signed ‘H. Marsh’ and in it Marsh represents himself as the compiler, although the collection may have been selected by Francis Kirkman. Kirkham signed the reprinted preface in the 1672 edition and thus claimed therein to have been the compiler. The title page describes this book as ‘Part I’. (iv) The Wits, or, Sport upon Sport. In Selected pieces of Drollery, Digested into Scenes by way of Dialogue. Together with Variety of Humours of several Nations, fitted for the Pleasure and Content of all Persons, either in Court, City, Country or Camp.The like never before Published. Part I. (London, 1672). The 1662 collection was re-published under an (almost) identical title in 1672. This time it was printed for Kirkman by ‘E.C.’. Here the prefatory address to the reader is signed ‘Francis Kirkham’.
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(v) The Wits, or, sport upon Sport. Being a Curious Collection of several Drols and Farces, Presented and Shewn For the merriment and Delight of Wise Men, and the Ignorant: as they have been sundry times Acted in Publique, and Private In London at Bartholomew } Faires. In the Countrey at other } In Halls and Taverns. On several Mountebancks Stages. At Charing Cross, Lincolns-Inn-Fields, and other places. By Several Stroleing Players, Fools and Fidlers, And the Mountebancks Zanies.With loud Laughter and great Applause. (London, 1673).
In 1673 a further collection of ten drolls (presumably‘Part II’ but not identified as such) was printed twice (once in octavo, once in quarto) for Kirkman under the same main title The Wits, or, Sport upon Sport but now with a different long title.
II. Content of The Wits or Sport upon Sport and linked volumes.
(i). Acteon & Diana with A Pastoral Storie of the Nimph Oenone followed by the several conceited hunours of Bumpkin the Huntsman, Hobbinal the Shepherd, singing Simpkin and John Swabber the Seaman . (London, 1656)
Contains: ‘Simpleton the Smith’ ‘Acteon & Diana (features Bumpkin) ‘Singing Simpkin’ ‘Here follow the rural reports of the Birth-day of the Nymph Oenone’ ‘John Swabber’
(ii) The merry conceited humours of Bottom the weaver. As it hath often been publikely acted by some of his majesties comedians, and lately privately, presented, by several apprentices for their harmless recreation, with great applause. (London, 1661)
Contains: ‘The merry conceited humours of Bottom the weaver’.
(iii)The Wits, or, Sport upon Sport in Select Pieces of Drollery, Digested into Scenes by way of Dialogue. Together with Varierty of Humnours of several Nations, fitted for the pleasure and content of all persons, either in Court, City, Countrey, or camp. The like never before Published. Part I. (London, 1662).
Contains: Source: 1. ‘The Bouncing Knight or the Shakespeare Robers Rob’d’ 1 Henry IV , 2.4, 3.3, 4.2, 5.1, 5.4 2. ‘Jenkins Love Course and Shirley Perambulation’ Loves Tricks or the School of Compliments, 2.2, 3.2, 3.5, 4.3, 5.3
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‘The False Heire and formal Curate’ 4. ‘The Lame Commonwealth’ Fletcher The Beggar’s Bush’ ,2.1 5. ‘The Sexton, or the Mock Fletcher and Massinger. Testator’ The Spanish Curate, 4.5 6. ‘A Prince in Conceit’ Shirley The Opportunity, 2.1, 3.1, 4.1, 5.2. 7. ‘An Equall Match’ Fletcher Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, 3.2, 3.4, 4.1
8. ‘The Stallion’ Fletcher and Massinger The Custom of the Country, 3.3, 4.5 9. ‘The Grave-makers’ Shakespeare Hamlet, 5.1. 10. ‘The Loyal Citizens’ Beaumont and Fletcher Cupid’s Revenge, 4.1.
11. ‘Invisible Smirk, or the Pen ‘J.[ohn]C.[ooke]’ Combatants The Two Merry Milkmaids, 5.1 12. ‘The Three Merry Boys’ Fletcher and others The Bloody Brother, or Rollo Duke of Normandy, 2.2, 3.2. 13. ‘The Bubble’ John Cooke Greene’s Tu Quoque, or The Citie Gallant, sc.1,6,11,16,18. 14. ‘The Club Men’ Beaumont and Fletcher Philaster, 5.4 15. ‘Forc’d Valour’ Fletcher The Humorous Lieutenant, 2.4, 3.3, 3.5, 3.6 16. ‘The Encounter’ Beaumont and Fletcher The Knight of the Burning Pestle, 3.1 17. ‘Simpleton the Smith’ Abridged from the version first printed in Acteon & Diana in 1656, which had been attributed to Robert Cox. 18. ‘Bumpkin’ First printed in Acteon & Diana (here abridged), which had been attributed to Robert Cox. 19. ‘Simpkin’ First printed in Acteon & Diana (here abridged), which had been attributed to Robert Cox. 20. ‘Hobbinal’ Abridged from Oenone (as titled in Part II) from Acteon & Diana which had been attributed to Robert Cox. 21. ‘Swabber’ First printed in Acteon & Diana (here slightly abridged) which had been attributed to Robert Cox.
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22. ‘Monsieur the French Dancing The Duke of Newcastle Master’ The Varieties, 2.2, 2.3 23. ‘The Landlady’ Fletcher The Chances, 1.10, 3.1, 3.3. 24. ‘The Testy Lord’ Beaumont and Fletcher The Maid’s Tragedy, 1.2, 2.2, 3.2, 4.2 25. ‘The Imperick’ Jonson The Alchemist, 1.3, 2.6, 2.5 26. ‘The Surprise’ Fletcher and Rowley The Maid in the Mill, 2.2, 4.1, 4.2, 5.2 27. ‘The Doctors of Dulhead Fletcher College Monsieur Thomas, 2.3, 3.1.
(iv) The Wits, or Sport upon Sport (London,1672). The content is identical to that in the 1662 edition.
(v)The Wits, or, Sport upon Sport. Being a Collection of Several Drolls or Farces… (London, 1673).
Contains: Source: 1. ‘The Black Man’ A typical jig or song drama – may date from 16th Century. 2. ‘Venus and Adonis, or the Unknown. Maid’s Philosophy’ 3. ‘Philetis and Constancia’ Drawn principally from Abraham Cowley’s poem ‘Constancia and Philetis’ 1630. 4. ‘King Ahasuerus and Queen Biblical playlet (Book of Esther) Ester’ 5. ‘King Solomon’s Wisdom’ Biblical playlet (First Book of Kings ch.3) 6. ‘Diphilo and Granida’ Unknown 7. ‘Wiltshire Tom, an From a court masque ‘the King and Queen’s Entertainment at Court’ Entertainment at Richmond, 1636’ 8. ‘ Oenone, A Pastoral’ Expanded version of ‘Oenone’ found in Acteon & Diana 1655/6, there attributed to Robert Cox. 9. ‘The Merry Conceited Shakespeare Humours of Bottom the A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, Weaver’ 3.1, 3.2, 4.1, 4.2, 5.1 10. ‘The Cheater Cheated’ Marston The Dutch Courtesan, 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.3, 3.2, 3.3, 4.5, 5.3
NB. Elson discusses the drolls’ sources in some detail and the origins of some remain speculative. See John James Elson, ed. The Wits or, Sport upon Sport (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press and London: Henry Milford/OUP, 1932), 393-144
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APPENDIX 8 The English Treasury of Wit and Language, 1655
The Shakespeare extracts in The English Treasury of Wit and Language
1.Of Accident (Chance) Contingencies, Events p.1 (B1 r) If all the yeare were playing Holydayes, To sporte would be as tedious as to work; But when they seldome come, they wish’d for come, And nothing pleaseth but rare Accidents 1 Henry IV 1.2.201-204 2.Of Adversity, Affliction p.4 (B2 v) The great man down, his favourite flyes, The poor advanc’d, makes friends of enemies; And hitherto doth love on fortune tend, And who not needs shall never want a friend; And who in want a hollow friend doth try, Directly seasons him his enemy. Hamlet 3.2.195-200 3.Of Advice, Counsell &c p.5 (B3 r) Men counsaile, and speak comfort to that griefe Which they themselves not feel but; but tasting it, Their counsaile turns to passion, which before, Would give preceptial medecine to rage, Fetter strong madnesse in a silken thread, Charm Ache with Air, and Agony with words. ‘Tis each mans office to speak patience, To those that wring under the load of sorrow; But no man’s virtue or sufficency To be so morall, when he shall endure The like himself. Much Ado About Nothing 5.1.20-31 4. p.6 (B3v) If to do were as easie, as to know what is good to do, Chappels had been Churches, and poor mens Cottages Princes Palaces: it is a good Divine That follows his own Instructions: I can easier Teach twenty what is good to be done, then be One of the twenty to follow my own teaching. The brain may devise Laws for the blood, But a hot temper leaps over a cold decree. The Merchant of Venice 1.2.12-18 5. Of Anger, fury, Impatience, Rage, Wrath p.12 (B6v) He parted frowning from me, as if ruine leap’d from his eyes, so looks the chast Lyon Upon the daring Huntsman that has gall’d him,
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Then makes him nothing. Henry VIII 3.2.206-209 6. p.14 (B7v) To climb steep hills Requires slow pace at first, anger is like A full hot horse, who being allow’d his way, Self-Mettal tyres him. Henry VIII 1.1.131-133 7. Of Authority p. 20 (C2r) Although Authority be a stubborn beast Yet he is oft led by the Nose with Gold The Winter’s Tale 4.4.801-803 8. p. 20 (C2v) Thus can the Demi-God, Authority, Make us pay down for our offence by weight, The words of Heaven, on whom it will, it wills, On whom it will not, so, yet still ‘tis just. Measure for Measure 1.2.112-115 9. p.20 (C2v) Hence hath offence his quick celerity, When it is born in high authority, When vice makes mercy, mercy is so extended, That for the faults love is th’offender friended. Measure for Measure 4.2.112-115 10. Of Bawds, Panders, Pimps &c p.27 (C6r) We cannot board and lodge a dozen, or Fourteen Gentlewomen, that live honestly By the prick of their Needles, but it will be thought We keep a Bawdy-house presently. Henry V 2.1.31-34 11. Of Boasting p.29 (C7r) The man that once did fell the Lyons skin, While the beast liv’d, was kill’d with hunting him. Henry V 4.3.94-95 12. p.29 (C7r) Did never know so woefull a voice issue From so empty a heart, but the song is true, The empty vessel makes the greatest sound. Henry V 4.4.63-5 13. p.29 (C7r) It comes to passe oft, that a terrible oath, With a swaggering Accent sharply twang’d off, Gives manhood more approbation than ever Proof it selfe would have earn’d him. Twelfth Night 3.4.174-178. 14. Of Burial and Mourning p.36 (D2v)
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If a man Doe not erect (in this Age) his own Tomb Before he dyes, he shall live no longer in Monuments Then the Bells ring, and the widdow weeps; That is, an hour in clamour, and a quarter in rheum; Therefor it is most expedient, for the wife, If Don worm (his Conscience) find no impediment To the contrary, to be Trumpet Of his own vertues. Much Ado About Nothing 5.3.69-72, 75-78 15. Of Ceremony. Complement p.39 (D4r) Ceremony was but devis’d at first To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes, Recanting goodness, sorry ere ‘tis show’n, But where there is true friendship there needs none. Timon of Athens 1.2.14-17 16. p.40 (D4v) When love begins to sicken and decay, It useth an enforced Ceremony, There are no tricks in plain and simple faith; But hollow men, like horse hot at hand, Make gallant shew, and promise of their metal, But when they should endure the bloody spur, They fall their Crests, and like deceitfull jades, Sink in the tryall. Julius Caesar 4.2.20-27 17. p.40 (D4v) The feast is sold That is not often vouch’d, while it is making, ‘Tis given with welcome; to feed were best at home, From thence the sauce to meat is Ceremony, Meeting were bare without it. Macbeth 3.4.32-36 18. Of Chastity, Continence p. 42/3 (D5v/D6r) Sister, keep in the rear of your affection, Out of the hot and danger of desire, The chastest Maid is prodigall enough, If she unmask her beauty to the Moon. Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes, The Canker galls the infant of the spring Too oft, before the buttons be disclos’d; And in the morn and liquid dew of youth, Contagious blastments are most imminent. Be wary then, best safety lies in feare, Youth to it selfe rebells, though none else neer. Hamlet 1.3.33-44 19. Of Children p. 44 (D6v)
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Men are no lesse unhappy, their issue being Not gracious, then they are in losing them, When they have approved their virtues. The Winter’s Tale 4.2.26-28 20. Of Compassion p. 49 (E1r) Pitty is the virtue of the Law, And none but Tyrants use it cruelly. Timon of Athens 3.6.8-9 21. p.49 (E1r) Not of a womans tenderness to be Require, nor childs, nor womans face to see. Coriolanus 5.3.130-131 22. Of Conscience, Guilt p.53 (E3r) Things done well And with a care, exempt themselves from feare: Things done without example, in their issue Are to be fear’d, their guilt will stick close to us. Henry VIII 1.2.89-91 ?95 23. Of the Country p 56/7 (E4v/E5r) How absolute the Clown is? we must speak by the Card, Or else AEquivocation will undo us. These late years I have taken notice of it, The Age is grown so picked, that the Toe Of the Peasant comes so neer the heel of the Courtier, He galls his Kibe. Hamlet 5.1.133-137 24. Of Credit, Reputation p.61 (E7r) The purest treasure mortall times afford, Is spotless Reputation, that away Men are but gilded Loam, or painted Clay. Richard II 1.1.177-179 25. p.61 (E7r) Good name (in man or woman) Is the immediate Jewel of their souls, Who steals my purse, steals trash, ‘tis something, nothing; ‘Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name, Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed. Othello 3.3.160-166 26. Of Cuckolds p.65 (F1r0 Sir, be a man, Think every bearded fellow that is but yoak’d, May draw with you: there’s millions now alive, That nightly lie in those unproper beds,
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Which they dare swear peculiar, your cause is better: O ‘tis the spight of hell, the fiend’s arch mock, To lip a wanton in a secure Couch, And to suppose her chaste. Othello 4.1.64-71 27. Of Custome. Prescription p.67 (F2r) That monster custom, that all sence doth eat, Of habits Devil, is Angell yet in this, That to the use of Actions fair and good, He likewise gives a Frock or Livery, That aptly is put on. Hamlet Q2 Add. 3.4. after line 151.[1-5] 28. p. 68 (F2v) New customes, Though they be never so ridiculous, (Nay, let them be unmanly, yet) are followed. Henry VIII 1.3.3-4 29. Of Danger, Difficulty, Hazards &c p.70 (F3v) Send danger from the East unto the West So honour cross it from the North to South, And let them grapple, the blood more stirs To rowz a Lyon , then to start a Hare. 1 Henry IV 1.3.193-196 30. Of the Deity, Godhead p.74 (F5v) You Gods Do snatch some here for little faults, that’s love To have them fall no more. You some permit To second ills with ills, each elder worse Such as their sin improves, so does their curse. Cymbeline 5.1.12 -14? 31. p.74 (F5v) It is not so with him that all things knows, As ‘tis with us, that square our guess by showes; But most it is presumption in us, when The help of heaven we count the act of men. All’s Well That Ends Well 2.1.149-152 32. Of Delay, Deliberation p.75 (F6r) Then we do sin against our own estate, When we may profit meet, and come to late. Timon of Athens 5.1.40-41 33. Of Desire p.76. (F6v) 1.It is a marvell he out stayes his hour, For lovers ever run before the clock. 2.Oh ten times faster Venus Pigeons fly, To steal loves Bonds, new made, then they are wont
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To keep obliged faith unforfeited. 1.That ever holds, who riseth from a Feasst With that keen appetite that he sits down: Where is the horse that doth untread again His tedious measures, with th’unbated fire That he did pace them first? All things that are, Are more with spirit chus’d then enjoyed. How like a Yonker, or a Prodigall The scarfed Barque puts from her native Bay, Hugg’d and embraced by the strumpet wind? How like a Prodigall doth she return, With over-withered Ribs and ragged sayles, Lean, rent, and begger’d by the strumpet wind? The Merchant of Venice 2.6.3-16 34. Of Destiny, Fate p.78 (F7v) Our indiscretions sometimes serve us well, When our dear plots do paul, and that should teach us There’s a Divinity that shapes our ends, Rough hew them how we will. Hamlet 5.2.8-11 35. Of Detraction (by Slander) p.79 ((F8r) Men that make envy and crooked malice Their nourishment dare bite the best. Henry VIII 5.2.77-79 36. p.79 (F8r) No might, nor greatnesse in mortality Can censure scape, black wounding Calumny The whitest virtue strikes; what King so strong, Can tie the Gall up in a slanderous tongue? Measure for Measure 3.1.444-447 37. p.80 (F8v) Slander does live upon succession, For ever hous’d, where once it gets possession. The Comedy of Errors 3.1.106-107 38. Of Disdain, contempt, Scorn &c p. 81 (G1r) I never yet saw man How wise, how noble, young, how fairly featur’d, But she would spell him backwards: if fair fac’d, She’d swear the Gentleman should be her sister: If black, why nature, drawing of an Antique, Made a foul blot: If tall, a Lance, ill headed; If low, an Agat very vilely cut: If speaking, why a fan, blown with all winds: If silent, than a block, moved with none. So turns she every man the wrong side out. Much Ado About Nothing 3.1.59-68
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39. Of Dissimulation, Hypocisie p.82 (G1v) We are oft to blame in this, ‘Tis too much prov’d, that with devotions visage, And pious Action, we do sugar ore The Devil himself. Hamlet 3.1.48-51 40. p.83 (G2r) Divinity of Hell! When Devils will their blackest sins put on, They do suggest at first with heavenly shews. Othello 2.3.341-343 41. p.83 (G2r) The Devill can cite Scripture for his purpose, An evill soul producing holy witnesses, Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, A goodly Apple, rotten at the heart: Oh what a beauteous outside falshood hath! The Merchant of Venice 1.3.97-101 42. Of the Devill p.83/84 (G2r/v) Oft times to win us to our harm The instruments of darknesse tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray us In things of deepest consequence. Macbeth 1.3.121-124 43. p.84 (G2v) Oh let these juggling fiends never be credited, That paulter with us in a double sence, That keep the word of promise to our ear, And break it to our hope. Macbeth 5.10.19-22
44. Of Drunkenness p.85 (G3r) I’l ask him for my place again, and he will tell me I am a Drunkard, had I as many mouths, As Hydra, such an answer would stop then all. Oh thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast No name to be known by, let us call thee Devill. To be now a sensible man, by and by a fool, And presently a beast! Oh strange! Every Inordinate Cup is unblest, and the ingredient is a Devil. Othello 2.3.296-301 45. p.85 (G3r) He that drinks all night, and is hang’d betimes in the morning, May sleep the soundlier all the next day.’ Measure for Measure 4.3.42-44 46. Of Duells p.87 (G4r)
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To wear them like his Rayment, carelessly, And ne’r prefer his injuries to his heart, To bring it into danger: Think but thus, If wrongs be evils, and enforce us kill, What folly ‘tis to hazard life for ill? Timon of Athens 3.6.33-37 47. Of Effeminancy p.90 (G5v) A woman impudent and mannish grown, Is not more loath’d than an effeminate man In time of Action. Troilus and Cressida 3.3.210-212 48. Of Eloquence, Garrulity, Loquacity (Speech and the Tongue) p. 90/91 (G5v/G6r) 1. If you spend word for word With me, I shall make your wit bankrupt. 2. I know it well, y’have an Exchequer of words And I think, no other treasure to give your followers, For it appears by their bare Liveries, They live by your bare word. The Two Gentlemen of Verona 2.4.39-44 49. p.91 (G6r) These fellows of infinite tongue, That can none themselves into Ladies favours, Doe alwaies reason themselves out againe. What, a speaker is but a prater, a rime is but a Ballad, A good leg will fall, a straight back will stoop, A black Beard will turn white, a curl’d pate will grow bald, A fair face will wither, a full eye will wax hollow, But a good heart never changes. Henry V 5.2.156-165. 50. p.91 (G6r) He speaks a great deale of nothing, More than any man in Venice, his reasons are Two graines of wheat, hid in two bushels of Chaffe. You shall seek all day ere you find them, and when You have them, they are not worth the search. The Merchant of Venice 1.1.114-118 51. Of Enjoying p. 92 (G6v) What we have, we prise not the worth While we enjoy it, but being lack’d and lost, Why then we lack the value, then we find The vertue than possession would not shew us, While it was ours. Much Ado About Nothing 4.1.220-224 52. Of Eloquence, Garrulity, Loquacity, (Speech and the Tongue) p.92 (G6v) While I threat he does live, Words to the heat of deeds, too cold breath give.
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Macbeth 2.1.60-61 53. p.92 (G6v) My estate Stands on me to defend, and not debate. King Lear 5.1.59-60 54. p.93 (G7r) Our heady faults Make triviall price of serious things we have Not knowing them, untill we know their grave; Oft our displeasures, to ourselves unjust, Destroy our friends, and after weep their dust. All’s Well That Ends Well 5.3.61-65 55. Of Errour, Mistake &c. p.94 (G7v) I do I know not what, and fear to find My eye too great a flatterer to my mind. Twelfth Night 1.5.298-299 56. p.95 (G8r) O you heavenly Charmers, What things you make of us? For what we lack We laugh; for what we have, are sorry still, Are children in some sort: Let us be thankfull For that which is, and with your leave dispute, That are above our question. The Two Noble Kinsmen 5.6.131-136 57. Of Extreames p. 98(H1v) These violent delights have violent ends, And in their triumph dye, like fire and powder, Which as they kisse consume: the sweetest honey Is loathsome in its own deliciousnesse, And in the taste confound the appetite. Therefore love moderately, long love doth so, Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow. Romeo and Juliet 2.5.9-15 58. p.98 (H1v) Nature hath fram’d strange fellowes in her time, Some that will evermore peep through their eye And laugh like Parrots at a Bagpiper, And others of such Vinegar aspect, That they’l not show their teeth in way of smile, Though Nestor swear, the jest was laughable. The Merchant of Venice 1.1.51-56 59. p. 98 (H1v) They that are sick that surfeit with too much, As they that starve with nothing: ’tis a happinesse To be seated in the mean; superfluity comes sooner By white hairs, but competency lives longer. The Merchant of Venice 1.2.5-9
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60. Of Feare (Cowardice) p.102/3 (H3v/H4r) Cowards die many times before their death, The valiant never tast of death but once, Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange, that men should fear,/ Seeing that death (a necessary end) Will come when it will come. Julius Caesar 2.2.32-37 61. p.103 (H4r) None of these Rogues and Cowards, but Ajax Is a fool to him. Trag.King Lear 2.2.122-123 62. Of Flattery p.106 (H5v) They do abuse a King that flatter him, For flattery is the bellows blows up sin, Whereas reproof, obedient and in order, Fits Kings as they are men, for they may erre. Pericles Sc.2 43-44, 47-48 63. Of Fortune p. 111 (H8r) Will Fortune never come with both hand full? But write her fair words still in foulest Letters; She either gives a stomack and no meat, (Such are the poor I health) or else a feast, And takes away the stomach; such are the rich That have abundance and enjoy it not. 2 Henry IV 4.3.103-108 64. Of Friendship p.113 (I1r) In companions That do converse and wast time together Whose soules do bear an equal yoke of love, There must be needs a like proportion Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit. The Merchant of Venice 3.4.11-15 65. p.113 (I1r) Friendship is constant in all other things, Save in the office and affairs of love; Therefore all hearts in love, use their own tongues, Let every eye negotiate for itselfe, And trusts no Agent: Beauty is a witch, Against whose charmes faith melteth into blood. Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.165-170 66. p. 113 (I1r) What vilder thing on earth, then are false friends, Who can bring noblest minds to basest ends? How rarely does it meet with this ties guize, When man was wish’d to love his enemies?
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Grant may I ever love, and rather wooe Those that would mischiefe me, then those that do. Timon of Athens 4.3.465-470 67. Of Glory, Greatness p.118 (I3v) Oh the fierce wretchednesse that glory brings us; Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt, Since Riches point to misery and contempt? Who’ld be so mocked with glory, as to live But in a Dream of friendship? To have his pomp, and all that state compound, But only painted liked his varnish’d friends. Timon of Athens 4.2.30-36 68. p. 118 (I3v) Rightly to be Great, Is not to stir without great Argument, But greatly to find quarrell in a straw, If honour be at stake. Hamlet Q2 Add. lines in 4.4.after line 9 [44-47] 69. p.118 (I3v) Greatnesse once faln out with fortune, Must fall out with men too, what the declin’d is, He shall as soon read in the eyes of others, As feel in his own fall. For men, like Butterflyes Show not their mealy wings, but to the summer. And not a man, for being simply man, Hath any honour, but honour’d by those Gawdes, That are without him, as place, riches, favour, Prizes of Accident, as oft as merit, Which when they fall (as being slippery standers) The loves that lean’d on them, as slippery too, Do one pluck down another, and together Dye in the fall. Troilus and Cressida 3.3.69-81 70. Of History p.127/8 (I8r/v) There is a History in all mens lives, Figuring the nature of the times deceas’d, Which well observ’d, a man may prophesie With a neer aim, of the main chance of things As yet not come to life, which in their seeds And weak beginnnings, lie intreasured. 2 Henry IV 3.1.75-80 71. Of Humility p. 133 (K3r) This low door Instructs us how t’adore the heavens, and bowes us To a mornings holy office: The Gates of Monarch Are arched so high, that Giants may jet through And keep their impious Turbands on, without
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Good morrow to the Sun. Cymbeline 3.3.2-7 72. p. 134 (K3v) It is a common proof, That lowliness is Ambitions Ladder, Where to the climber upward turns his face; But when he once attain the utmost ground, He then unto the Ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend. Julius Caesar 2.1.21-27 73. Of Idlenesse, Sloth, &c p.136/& (K4v/K5r) What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? A beast no more; Sure he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after gave us not That capacity and Godlike reason To fust in us, unus’d. Hamlet Q2 additional lines in 4.4 after line 9 [24-30]. 74. p.137 (K5r) Those wounds heal ill, that men do give themselves. Omission to do what is necessary Seals a commission to a blank of danger, And danger like an Ague, subtily taints Even then, when we sit idly in the Sun. Troilus and Cressida 3.3.222-226 75. Of Jealousie p.139 (K6r) Beware of jealousie, It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock The meat it feeds on; that Cuckold lives in blisse Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger. But oh, what damned minutes tells he ore, Who dotes yet doubts, suspects yet wrongly loves? Poor and content is rich, and rich enough, But riches endlesse is as poor as Winter To him, that ever fears he shall be poor. Othello 3.3169-174, 176-178 76. Of Impudence p.140 (K6v) I never heard of yet that any of the bolder vices wanted Less impudence, to gainsay what they did, Then to perform it first. The Winter’s Tale 3.3.53-56 77. Of Inconstancy p. 142 (K7v) What to ourselves in passion we propose The passion ending doth the passion lose.
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The violence of either griefe or joy Their own enacters with themselves destroy Where joye most revels, griefe doth most lament, Grief joys, joy grieves, no slender accident. This world is not for aye, nor is it strange, That even our loves should with our future change; For ‘tis a question left us yet to prove, Whether love leads fortune, or else fortune love. Hamlet 3.2.185-194 78. p. 143 (K8r) 1. It is the lesser blot (modesty finds) Women to change their shape, then men their minds. 2. Then men their minds? ‘tis true, oh heaven, were man But constant, he were perfect, that one errour Fils him with faults, makes him run through all sins Inconstancy falls off, ere it begins. The Two Gentlemen of Verona 5.4.107-108 79. p.143 (K8r) He wears his faith, as the fashioning of a hat, It ever changes with the next block. Much Ado About Nothing 1.1.71-72 80. Of Incontinency p. 145 (L1r) As virtue never will be mov’d Though lewdnesse court it in the shape of heaven; So lost, though to a radiant Angel link’d, Which sate itselfe in a celestiall Bed And prey on Garbidge. Hamlet 1.5.53-57 81. Of Industry, Endeavour p.146 (L1v) Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven; the fated skie Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull Our slow designes, when we ourselves are dull. All’s Well That Ends Well 1.1.212-215 82. p.146 (L1v) Impossible be strange attempts to those That weigh their paines in sence, and do suppose Who hath been cannot be; who ever strove To show her merit, that did misse her love All’s Well That Ends Well 1.1.220-223 83. Of Ingratitude p. 148/9 (L2v/L3r) Oh unthankfull wretch! This is the worlds soul, just of the same piece Is every flatterers spirit. Who can call him friend That dips in the same dish? Tymon has been This Lords Father, and kept his credit with his purse Supported his Estate: nay, Tymon’s money
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Has paid his men their wages: he nere drinks, But Tymons silver treads upon his lip; And yet (oh see the montrousnesse of man, When he looks out in an ungratefull shape) He does deny him, in respect of his, What charitable men afford to Beggers. Religion grones at it. Timon of Athens ? 3.2.65-77 84. Of Justice &c p.153 (L5r) In the corrupted currents of this world Offences gilded hand may shore by justice: And oft ‘tis seen, the wicked prize itselfe, Buyes out the Law; but ‘tis not so above, There is no shuffling, there the Action lyes In his true nature, and we ourselves compell’d Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, To give in Evidence. Hamlet 3.3.57-64 85. p.153 (L5r) Mercy I shew most when I justice shew, For then I pitty those I do not know, Which a disguis’d offence would after gall, And do him right, that answering one foul wrong, Lives not to act another. Measure for Measure 2.2.102-106 86. Of Knighthood &c p. 162 (M1v) 1. Where learn’d you to swear by your honour, fool? 2. Of a certain Knight that swore by his honour They were good Pancakes, and swore byhis honour The Mustard was naught: now I’ll stand to it, The Pancakes were naught, and the Mustard was good, And yet the Knight was not forsworn, For he never had any honour to forswear Or if he had, he had sworn it away, Before ever he saw those Pancakes, or that Mustard. As You Like It 1.2.59-64, 74-76 87. Of Knowledge p. 164/5 ( M2v/M3r) Knowledge and Virtue are Endowments greater Then nobleness and riches: careless heir May the two latter darken and expend; But immortality attends the former, Making man a God. Pericles Sc 12. 24-28 88. p. 170/171 (M5v/M6r) That delight is most vain, Which with pain purchased, doth inherit pain, As painfully to pore upon a Book,
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To seek the light of truth, while truth the while, Doth falsely blind the eye-sight of his look, And light, by seeking light, doth light beguile. So ere you find where light in darkness lies, Your light grows dark, by losing of your eyes. Love’s Labour’s Lost 1.1.72-79 89. Of Life p.173 (M7r) Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor Player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a Tale Told by an Ideot, full of sound an fury, Signifying nothing. Macbeth 5.5.23-27 90. p.173/4 (M7r/M7v) Be absolute for death or death or life, Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life, If I do lose thee I do lose a thing That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art, Subject to all skyie Influences, That doth this habitation where thou keep’st it, Hourly afflict: meerly thou art deaths fool, For him thou labour’st, by thy flight, to shun, And yet runn’st towards him still: thou art not noble, For all th’accomodations that thou bearest, Are nurs’d by baseness; th’art ny no menas valiant, For thou dost fear the soft and tender Fork Of a poor worm: thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provok’st, yet grossly fearest Thy death which is no more. Th’art not thy selfe, For thou existest of many thousand grains That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not, For what thou hast not, still thou striv’st to get, And what thou hast forgottest: th’art not certain For thy Complexion shifts to strange effects, After the Moon. If thou art rich, th’art ppoor, For, like an Asse, whose back with Ingott bowes, Thou bear’st thy heavy riches but a Journy, And death unloads thee:Friends then hast thou none, For thy own bowells which do call thee fire, The meer effusion of thy proper loyns, Do curse the Gout, Sarpego, and the Rhume, For ending thee no sooner. Th’hast nor youth nor age, But, as it were, an after dinners sleep, Dreaming of both, for all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palsied Eld, and when thou art old and rich, Th’hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty, To make thy riches pleasant; what’s in all this, That bears the name of life? Yet in this life,
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Lie hid more thousand deaths, and death we fear, That makes these odds all even. Measure for Measure 3.1.5-41 91. Of Madness p. 185 (N5r) 1. How does Malvolio? 2. Truly he does hold Beelzebub at the staves end, as well as a man In his case may do: he has writ you a letter, I should have given it you this morning, but As a mad man’s Epistles are no Gospells, So it skills not much when th’are delivered. Twelfth Night 5.1.281-286 92. Of Man p.186/187 (N5v/N6r) We women, ‘Tis not a year or two shews us a man, They are all but stomacks, and we all but food, They eat us hungerly, and when th’are full, They belch us up again. Othello 3.4.101-104 93. Of Melancholy, Musing &c p. 190 (N7v) 1. Let me have men about me that are fat, Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a nights. Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look, He thinks too much, such men are dangerous. 2. Fear him not, Caesar, he’s not dangerous, He is a noble Roman, and well-given. 1. Would he were fatter, but I fear him not, Yet if my name were liable to fear, I do not know the man I should avoid, So soon as that spare Cassius : He reads much, He is a great observer, and he looks Quite through the deeds of men: he loves no sports, (As thou dost Anthony) he heares no musick, Seldome he smiles, and then in such a sort AS if he mock’d himselfe, and scorn;d his spirit, That could be move’d tosmile at any thing. Such men are never at hearts ease, While they behold a greater than themselves, And therefor are they very dangerous, I rather tell thee what is to be fear’d Then what I fear, for alwaies I am Caesar. Julius Caesar 1.2.193-213 94. p.191/192 (N7v/N8r) Let me play the fool With mirth and laughter, let old wrincles come, And let my Liver rather heat with wine, Then my heat cool with mortifying groan.
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Why should a man whose blood is warm within, Sit like his Gransire cut I Alabaster/ Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the Jaundise By being peevish? There are a sort of men, whose visages Do cream and mantle like astanidng Pool, And do a wilfull stilnesse entertain, With purpose to be dress’d in an opinion Of wisdome, gravity, profound conceipts; As who should say, I am sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips, let no Dog bark. I know of these, That onely are reputed wise, Casue they say nothing, when I am very sure, If they should speak, they’d almost dam those ears With hearing them, would call their Brothers fools. The Merchant of Venice 1.1.79-99 95. p. 191 (N8r) I have neither the Scholars melancholy, Which is Emulation; not the Musitians, Which is fantasticall; nor the Courtiers, Which is proud, nor the Souldiers, which is Ambitious, not he Lawyers which is politick, Nor the Ladies which is nice, nor the Lovers, Which is all these: But is is a melancholly Of my own, compounded of many Simples, Extracted from many objects, and indeed The sundry contemplations of my travells, In which my often rumination wraps me In a most humorous sadness. As You Like It 4.1.10-19 96. Of memory, Remembrance and Oblivion p. 192 (N8v) Time hath a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great siz’d monster of in gratitudes: Those scraps are good deeds Past, Which are devour’d as fast as they are made, Forgot as soon as done. Troilus and Cressida 3.3.139-144 97. p.192 (N8v) Remember thee? I, thou poor Ghost, while memory holds a seat In this distracted Gobe; remember thee? Yes from the Table of my memory, I’l wipe away all triviall fond Records, All sawes of Books all formes, all pressures pass’d, That youth and observation copied there, And thy commandment all alone shall live, Within the book and colum of my brain
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Unmix’d with baser matter. Hamlet 1.5.95-104 98. Of Mercy p.193 (O1r) All the souls that were, were forfeit once, And he that might the vantage once have took, Found out the remedy. Measure for Measure 2.2.75-77 99. p.193 (O1r) No ceremony that to great ones ‘longs, Not the Kings Crown, nor the deputed sword, The Marshall Truncheon, nor the Judges Rote, Become them with one half so good a grace, As mercy does. Measure for Measure 2.2.61-65 100. p. 193 (O1r) Ignominy in ransome, and free pardon, Are of two houses, lawfull mercy is Nothing of kin to foul redemption. Measure for Measure 2.4.112-114 101. p. 193 (O1r) The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven, Upon the place beneath. It is twice bless’d, It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes, ‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes The throned Monarch, better than his Crown: His scepter shews the face of temporall power, The attribute to awe and Majestie, Wherein doth sit the dread and state of Kings. But mercy is above this scepter’d sway, It is enthroned in the hearts of Kings, It is an attribute to God himselfe, And earthly power does them shew likest God, When mercy seasons justice. The Merchant of Venice 4.1.181-194 102.Of Murther p.198/199 (O3v/O4r) Bloud hath been shed ere now, in the old time Ere human statute purg’d the Common-weal, I, and since too, Murthers have been perform’d Too terrible for the ear: the time has been, That when the brain was out, theman would dye, And there an end. But now theyr ise again With twenty morral murthers on their Crowns, And push us from our stools. Macbeth 3.4.74-81 103.p.199 (O4r) Murther, although it hath no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ.
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Hamlet 2.2.595-596 104.Of Musicke &c p.200 (O4v) Nought is so stockish, hard, and full of rage, But musicke for the time does change his nature. The man that hath no musicke in himselfe, Nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sound, Is fit for Treasons, Stratagems and spoile, The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus, Let no such man be trusted. The Merchant of Venice 5.1.81-88 105.Of Nature p.201/202 (O5r/O5v) Nature crescent, does not grow alone In shews and bulk, but as her Temple waxes, The inward service of the mind and soule; Grows wide withal. Hamlet 1.3.11-14 106. p. 202 (O5v) How some times nature will betray its folly, Its tendernesse, and make itself a pastime To harder bosoms. The Winter’s Tale 1.2.153-155 107.Of Necessity p.202 (O5v) The art of our necessities is sharp, And can make vile things precious. King Lear 3.2.70-71 108.Of Old Age p. 205/206 (O7r/v) These old fellows, Have their ingratitude in them hereditary, Their blood is cak’d and cold, it seldome flowes, ‘Tis lack of Kindly warmth, they are not kind, And nature, as it grows again towards earth, Is fashion’d for the journey, dull and heavie. Timon of Athens 2.2.210-215 109.p.206 (O7v) Beshrew my Jealousie. It seems it is as proper to our Age, To cast beyond ourselves, and in our opinions, As it is common for the younger sort To lack discretion. Hamlet 2.1.114-118 110.Of Opinion p.207 (O7r) What things there are Most abject in regards, and dear in use? What things again most dear in esteem,
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And poor in true worth? Troilus and Cressida 3.3.122-125 111. p.207 (O8r) Opinion’s but a fool, that makes us scan The outward habit by the inward man. Pericles Sc.6. 59-60 112. Of Order, Degree &c p.208 (O8v) Though mean and mighty rotting Together, have one dust, yet reverence (That angell of the world) doth make distinction Of place ‘tween high and low, for Orders sake. Cymbeline 4.2.247-250 113. p.208 (O8v- P1r) Order or Degree being Vizarded, Th’unworthiest shews as fairly as the Masque. The Heavens themselves, the Planets, and this Center, Observe degree, priority and place, Insite, course, proportion, season, form, Office and custome in all line of order. And therefore is the glorious Planet Sol, In noble eminence, enthron’d and sphear’d Amids’t the other, whose medicinable eye Corrects the ill Aspects of all the Planets, And Posts, like the Commandment of a King, Sans check, to good or bad. But when the Planets, In evill mixture, to disorder wander; What plagues, and what portents, what mutiny, What raging, of the Sea, shaking of Earth, Commotion in the winds, frights, chaunges, horros, Divert and wrack, rend and dilaterate The unity and married calm of states, Quite from their figure? Oh, when Order is shak’d, (Which is the Ladder to all high designs) The enterprise is sick. How could Communities, Degrees in Schools, and Brotherhoods in Cities, Peacefull Commerce from dividable shore, The Primogeniture and dueof birth, Prerogative of Age, Crowns, Scepters, Lawrells, (But by degree) find in authentick place? Take Order but away, untutne that string, And hark what discord follows, each thing meets In mere oppugnancy, the bounded waters Shoald lift their bsoms higher then their shores, And make a sop of all this solid Globe. Troilus and Cressida 1.3.83-113 114.Of Painting &c p.210 (P1v) The painting is almost the naturall man For since dishonour trafficks with mans nature,
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He is but outside; the pencill’d figures are Even such as they give out. Timon of Athens 1.1.161-164 115.Of Passion p.213 (P3r) Blessed are those Whose bloud and judgement are so well commixt, That they are not a pipe for fortunes finger, To sound out what stop she please: give me that man That is not passions slave, and I will wear him In my hearts core, I, in my heart of hearts. Hamlet 3.2.66-71 116.Of Patience p.214 (P3v) What we in mean men oft call patience, Is pale Cowardize in noble breasts. Richard II 1.2.33-34 117.Of Peace p.215 (P4r) Peace exceeded is by War In sprightly walking, audible and full of vent. Peace is a very Apoplexy, Lethargy, Mull’d, Deafe, Sleepy, insensible, a getter of more bastard Children then war is a destroyer of men. And as the war in some sort may be said To be a Ravisher, so it cannot be denyed, But peace is a great maker of Cuckolds. Besides, it makes men hate one another Because they then lesse need each others help. Coriolanus 4.5.226-237 118.Of Penitence, Repentance p.216 (P4v) Who by repentance is not satisfied, Is not of heaven, nor earth, for these are pleas’d By penitence, th’eternal’s wrath’s appeas’d. The Two Gentlemen of Verona 5.4.79-81 119.Of the People p. 218/219 ( (P5v/P6r) What would you have, you Curres That like not peace nor war? the one affright you The other make you proud: He that trusts to you, Where he should find you Lyons, find you Hares, Where Foxes, Geese you are; no Usurer, no, Then is the coal of fire upon the ice, Or Hail-stone in the Sun. your vertue is To make him worthy, whose offence subdues him, And curse the justice it. who deserves greatness, Deserves your hate, and your affections are A sick mans appetite; who desires that most, Which will increase his evill. He that depends
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Upon you favours, swims with fins of lead And hews Oaks with Rushes. Coriolanus 1.1.166-179 120. p.219 (P6r) The people, I call them woollen vassailes, things created To buy and sell with Groats, to shew bare heads In congregations to yawn, be still and wonder When one but of my Ordinance stands up To speak of peace or war. Coriolanus 3.2.8-12 121. p. 219.220 (P6r/P6v) 1. Ingratitude is monstrous, and for the multitude To be ungratefull, were to make a monster Of the multitude, of which we being members, Should bring ourselves to monstrous Members. 2. And to make us no better thought of, A little help will serve, for once we stood up About the Corn, when Coriolanus, stuck not To call us the many headed multitude. 1. We have been called so of many, not that our heads Are some brown, some black, some Abram, some bald, But that our wits are so diversely coloured; And truly I think, if all our wits were to issue Out of one skull, they would fly East, West, North And South, and their consent of one direct way Would be at once to all parts of the Compasse. 2. Think you so? Which way think you would my Wit fly? 1. Nay, your wit will not so soon out, as another mans, ‘Tis so strongly wedg’d up in a Blockhead; but If it were at liberty, ‘twould sure go Southward, To lose itself in a fog, where being three parts Melted away with rotten dews, the fourth Would return for Conscience sake, to get thee a wife, Coriolanus 2.3.9-34 122. p 220 (P6v) There have been many great men that have flatter’d The people yet nere lov’d them: and there be Many that they have lov’d, they knew not wherefore, So that, if they love they know not why, they hate Upon no better grounds. Coriolanus 2.2.7-11 123. Of Philosophy p.222 (P7v) There was never yet Philosopher That could endure the Tooth-ache patiently, However they have writ the style of Gods, And made a pitch at chance and suffereance. Much Ado About Nothing 5.1.35-38
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124. Of Physiognomy p.224/5 (P8v/Q1r) I have Great comfort from this fellow in this danger, Methinks he hath no drowning mark about him, His complexion is perfect Gallowes. Stand fast, good fate, to his hanging, make the Rope of his destiny, our Cable, for Our own doth little help us, if he be not Born to be hang’d our case is miserable. The Tempest 1.1.27-32 125.Of Playes, Players p.226 (Q1v) I have heard That guilty Creatures sitting at a Play, Have, by the very cunning of the Scene, Been strook so to the soul, that presently They have proclaim’d their malefactions. Hamlet 2.2.591-594 126.Of Pleasure p.226 Q1v Pleasure and Revenge, Have ears more deaf than Adders to the voyce Of any true Decision. Troilus and Cressida 2.2.170- 172 127. p. 227 (Q2r) The Gods are just and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague us. Trag. King Lear 5.3.161-162 128.Of Poverty, Beggery p.233 (Q5r) That wishing well had not a body in it, Which might be felt; that we, the poorer born, Whose baser stars do shut us up in swishes, Might with effects of them follow our friends And show what we alone must think, which never Returns us thanks. All’s Well That Ends Well 1.1.177-182 129.Of Prison, Prisoner, Jaylors p.236 (Q6v) I am as well acquainted here in prison AS I was in our house of Profession: a man Would think it were Mrs. Overdon’s own house, For here be many of her old Customers. First here is young Mr, Rash, he is in for A commodity of brown Paper, and Old Ginger, Ninescore and seaventeen pound, of which he made Five Marks ready money, marry then ginger Was not much in request, for the old women were all dead: Then there is here one Mr Caper, at
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The sute of Mr. Three pile the Mercer, For some four suitsof peach-colour’d Sattin, Which now peaches him a begger. Then we have young Dizzy , and Mr Deepvow, Mr. Copperspur, and Mr Starve-lacquey, The Rapier and Dagger man, and young Dropheir That kill’d lusty Pudding & Mr Forthlight the Tilter, And brave Mr Shooetie the great Traveller, And wild Half-can that stabb’d Pots: And, I think, forty more, all great doers In our Trade, and are now for the Lords sake. Measure for Measure 4.3.1-18 130.Of Prodigality p. 237 (Q7r) You should have fear’d false times, when you did feast. Suspect still comes, when an estate is least. Timon of Athens 4.3.514-515 131. Of Prodigies, Comets &c p. 238 (Q7v) It is the part of men to fear and tremble, When the most mighty God, by tokens, sends Such dreadful heralds to astonish us. Julius Caesar 1.3.54-56 132. p.238 (Q7v) When Beggers dye, there are no Comet seen, The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of Princes. Julius Caesar 2.2.30-31 133.p.238 (Q7v) In the most high and palmy state of Rome (A little ere the mightiest Julius fell) The Graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber forth in the Roman streets, As stars with traines of fire, and dewes of blood, Disasters in the Sun, and the moist star, Upon whose influence Neptunes Empire stands Was sick almost to Doomsday with Eclipse. Hamlet Q2 Add. lines 1.1. following line 106 [5-13] 134.Of Profit, Gain p.240 (Q8v) If not by birth let me have lands by wit, All’s meet with me; that I can fashion fit. Trag.King Lear 1.2.172-173 135.Of Prosperity p. 240 (Q8v) Prosperity is the Bond of love, whose fresh Complexion, and whose heart together Affliction alters. The Winter’s Tale 4.4.573-575 136.Of Providence, foresight p. 241 (R1r)
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Peace should not so dull us, (though war, nor no known quarrell be in question) But that Defence, Musters, Preparations, Should be maintain’d, assembled and collected, As were a war in expectation. Henry V 2.4.16-20 137. p.241/242 (R1r/R1v) We’l set thee to School to the Ant, to teach thee There is no labouring in winter; all That follow their Noses, are led by their eyes But blind men; and there’s not a Nose ‘mong twenty But can smell him that stinks: let go thy hold, When a great wheel runs down the hill, let it. Break thy neck with following; but the great one That upward goes, let it draw thee after. When a wise man gives hthee better counsaile, Give me mine again, I would have none but Knaves follow it, because a fool gives it. King Lear 2.2.241-250 138.Of Sin p.259 (S2r) When in our viciousnesse we grow hard, The wise God seeles our eyes in our own filth Droop our clear judgements, makes us adore our errors, Laughs at us while we strut to our confusion. Antony and Cleopatra 3.13.112-116 139. p.260 (S2v) Foul deeds will rise Though all the world orewhelm them to mens eyes. Hamlet 1.2.256-257 140.Of Sleep, Dreams p.262 (S3v) O , gentle sleep, Natures soft Nurse, how have I frighted thee, That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulnesse? Whyrather sleep, lyest thou in smoaky Cribs, Upon unease Palats stretching htee, And husht the bussing night, flies to to thy slumber, Then in the perfum’d Chambers of the great, Under the Canopies of costly state, Abd lull’d with sounds of sweetest melody?[…] Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. 2 Henry IV 3.1.5-31 141.Of Sorrow p.265 (S5r) One sorrow never comes, but brings an heir That may succeed as his inheritor. Pericles Sc.4 62-63
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142.Of Swearing, Forswearing, &c. p.271 (S8r) When a gentleman is dispos’d to swear it is not For any slanders to curtall his oathes. Cymbeline 2.1.10-11 143.Of Temperance &c p.273 (T1r) Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot, That it do singe your selfe, we may out-run By violent swiftness, that which we run at, And lose by over-running. Henry VIII 1.1.140-141 144. 273. (T1r) Though I [am] old, yet I am strong and lusty, [ …] frosty, but kindly. As You Like It 2.3.48-54 145. p.274 (T1v) The sun’s a Thiefe, and with his great attraction Robs the vast sea […] Have uncheck’d Theft. Timon of Athens 4.3.438-446 146. p. 274/275 (T1v/T2r) The fortune of us that are the Moons men, Doth ebb and flow like the sea […] And spent with crying, bring in, now as low An Ebbe, as at the foot of the Ladder, and by and by In as high a flow as the ridge of the Gallows. 1 Henry IV 1.2.31-38 147. Of Time p.275/6 (T2r/T2v) Time travells in divers paces, with divers person; [ …] He thinks himself too soon there. He stands still With lawyers in the vacation, for they sleep Between Term and Term, and then they perceive Not how Time moves. As You Like It 3.2.301-324 148. Of Travel, travellers p.278 (T3v) I did think thee for two Ordinaries To be a pretty wise fellow, thou didst make Tolerable vent of thy travels, it might passé, Yet the sharks and Bennerets about thee, Did manifestly dissuade me from believing. Thou wert a vessel of too great a burthen. All’s Well That Ends Well 2.3.202-206 149.p. 278 (T3v) 1. A Traveller? Y’have great reason to be sad, I fear y’have sold your own lands, to see other mens Then to have seen much and to have nothing Is to have rich eyes and poor hands.[…]
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Or I’ll scarce think y’have swam in a Gundelo. As You Like It 4.1.20-27,31-36 150. Of Treason p.280 (T4v) Oh conspiracy Sham’st thou to show thy dangerous brow by night, When evills are most free […] to hide thee from prevention. Julius Caesar 1.3.77-85 151. Of Valour p.282. (T5v) When valour preys on reason, it does eat The sword it should fight with. Antony and Cleopatra 3.13.201-202 152, p. 282 (T5v) The breasts of Hecuba, When she did suckle Hector, look’d not lovelier Than Hector’s forehead, when it spit forth blood At Graecian swords contending. Coriolanus 1.3.42-44 153. p.283 (T6r) O Gentlemen, the time of life is short To spend that shortness basely, were too long Though life did ride upon a Dyals point, till ending at th’arrival of an hour. If we do live, we’l live to tread on Kings; If die brave death, when Princes die with us. 1 Henry IV 5.2.81-86 154. p.283 (T6r) Let them come, They come, like sacrifices in their trim, And to the fire-ey’d maid of smoaky war […] ‘Gainst the most stout opposites. 1 Henry IV 4.1.113-122 155. p.283/4 (T6r/T6v) Thou gallant Hector I have seen thee oft, Labouring for destiny, make cruel way Through ranks of Greekish youth […] When as a King of Greeks hes hemm’d thee in Like an Olympian wrestling[…] Never like thee. Troilus and Cressida 4.7.67-83 156. Of Victory and triumph p. 286 (T7v) A victory is twice itselfe, when the Atchiever, Brings home full numbers. Much Ado About Nothing 1.1.8-9 157. p.287 (T8r) Triumphs for nothing, and lamenting toyes, Is jollity for Apes, and grief for Boyes.
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Cymbeline 4.2.194-195 158.Of Warres p.289(V1r) Would you have me go To the Wars where a man may serve seven years For the loss of a leg, and not have money Enough in the end, to buy him a woodden one? Pericles Sc.19 195-198
159. Of Whores p. 291/2 (V2r/V2v) Fie upon her, There’s language in her eye, her cheek, her lip[…] That give a coasting welcome ere it comes …And daughters of the game. Troilus and Cressida 4.6.55-60
The number of extracts per play are: The Comedy of Errors 1 The Two Gentlemen of Verona 3 Romeo and Juliet 1 Richard II 2 Love’s Labour’s Lost 1 The Merchant of Venice 10 1 Henry IV 5 2 Henry IV 3 Much Ado About Nothing 8 Henry V 5 Julius Caesar 7 As You Like It 5 Hamlet 19 Twelfth Night 3 Troilus and Cressida 9 Measure for Measure 10 Othello 6 All’s Well That Ends Well 6 King Lear 6 Macbeth 6 Antony and Cleopatra 2 Timon of Athens 11 Pericles 5 Coriolanus 7 Cymbeline 5 The Winter’s Tale 5 The Tempest 1 Henry VIII 6 The Two Noble Kinsmen 1
Plays not used: 1 Henry VI,2 Henry VI,3 Henry VI,Titus Andronicus,Richard III King John,The Merry Wives of Windsor,A Midsummer Night’s Dream
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APPENDIX 9 John Evans’s Hesperides, or the Muses Garden.
Moseley entered this book on the Stationers Register on 16 August 1655 thus: A booke entitled Hesperides, or the Muses Garden stored with the choicest flowers of language and learning, in philosophy, history, cosmography, intermixed with the sweets of poetry, wherein ye ceremonious courtier & passionat amorist may gather rarities suitable to their ffancies being upon twelve hundred heads alphabetically digested by John Evans, Gent.9
The book did not find its way into print, even though Moseley listed it in an advertisement c.1660 where it is placed in a list of books that he intended to publish ‘deo volente’. Moseley died on 31 January 1660 and that may have sealed the book’s fate. Gunnar Sorelius’s essay ‘An Unknown Shakespearian Commonplace Book’ examined the manuscript scrapbooks created in the nineteenth century by Halliwell- Phillips possibly taken from the printer’s copy for this anthology, and a third mutilated manuscript in the Folger Library.10 He concluded that the anthology would have derived material from a wide range of genres and, unlike Cotgrave’s anthology, Hesperides would have included ‘A Catalogue of the Bookes from whence these Collections were extracted’. This listed three hundred and two titles, a third of which were plays, including thirty-six by Shakespeare. Sorelius estimates that the anthology may have contained 13,700 quotations, 749 of which have been preserved – of these 730 are from Shakespeare, since these are the passages that survived through Halliwell-Phillips’ scissor work and were pasted into his scrapbooks. Sorelius notes the extracts from Shakespeare and the relative use of particular plays and dramatists by the compiler but suggests that the selection may well have been constrained by the availability of source texts. ‘Ben Jonson seems to have been the compiler’s favourite; the Catalogue mentions 55 of his works, Joshua Sylvester comes second with 45 works… and Shakespeare third with 36.’11
9 Quoted by Hao Tianhu, ‘Hesperides,or the Muses Garden and its Manuscript History’, The Library, 7th series, vol.10 (2009), 373-404, 382. 10 Gunnar Sorelius, ‘An Unknown Shakespearian Commonplace Book’, The Library, 5th series, vol. xxvii (1973), 294-308. Hao Tianhu’s essay [Note 14] has expanded our knowledge of the genesis of this book. Folger MSS V.a.79; V.a.80 and V.a.75 and the Halliwell-Phillips scrapbooks at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. 11 Sorelius,298. 335
Others of the more frequently quoted dramatists were Sir Thomas Hawkins, Francis Quarles, Shirley, James Howell, Dekker, Richard Braithwait and Thomas Randolph. There are only two Fletcher plays mentioned in the Catalogue but the 1647 Folio may not have been available to Evans or, as Tianhu suggests, Moseley may have considered that to have been well used already in Cotgrave’s anthology.Thanks to Halliwell-Phillips we know that approximately 11% of the source titles were Shakespeare plays (36 of the 302 source titles). We can only ever have a skewed picture of what the book as whole might have been like, certainly much longer than Cotgrave and with a different Shakespearean content. Sorelius writes of the Shakespeare extracts Among the comedies, which are quoted 194 times, the compiler’s favourite was The winter’s tale (sic) from which he quoted fifty times. Measure for measure (sic) supplied material twenty-seven times and All’s Well nineteen. The least-often quoted plays were The taming of the shrew (sic) and, oddly enough since it was a favourite on the Restoration stage, The merry wives of Windsor (sic) (three times and twice respectively). With the histories, too, a late play, Henry VIII was the favourite with fifty-eight instances; King John was runner-up with thirty-nine quotations. There are in all 254 quotations from the histories. Among 290 quotations from the tragedies, Romeo and Juliet and Cymbeline are quoted most frequently, fifty-five and fifty times respectively. Othello and Antony and Cleopatra are not quoted at all.12
Sorelius notes that Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen are ‘of course’ not quoted. Two passages from Lucrece are also used.
12 Sorelius, 300-301. 336
APPENDIX 10. Poems: written by Wil. Shake-speare. Gent., 1640.
Stationers’ Register entry: “John Benson entered for his copie … An Addicion of some excellent poems to Shakespeare’s Poems by other gentlemen cizt. His mistris drawne, and her mind by Beniamin: Johnson. An epistle to Beniamin Johnson by ffrancis Beaumont. His mistris shade by R; Herrick. & co.”
Content of Poems: Written by Wil. Shake-speare. Gent. (London, 1640).
Frontispiece : Engraved portrait by W.[illiam] M.[arshall] – appears to have been derived from the Droeshout engraving, but shows Shakespeare facing the other way and the engraver has added more of his trunk and a shoulder cape and one of Shakespeare’s hands in which he clasps a laurel branch. The portrait is set in an oval ‘frame’ and beneath it are eight lines of verse in rhyming couplets.
This Shadow is renowned Shakespear’s? Soule of th’age The applause? delight? The wonder of the Stage. Nature herself was proud of his designes And joy’d to weare the dressing of his lines. As neither man, nor Muse, can prayse to much, For ever live thy fame, the world to tell, Thy like, no age, shall ever paralell.
These incorporate and adapt lines of unknown authorship with lines from Ben Jonson’s poem in the 1623 folio ‘To the memory of my beloved, the author Master William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us’: ‘Soule of the Age ! | The applause! delight! the wonder of our Stage!’ (ll.17/18); ‘Nature herselfe was proud of his designes| And ioyed to weare the dressing of his lines!’ (ll.47/8); ‘While I confess they writings to be such/As neither man nor Muse can praise too much’ (l.3/4).
*1r Title page POEMS:/ WRITTEN/ BY/WIL. SHAKE-SPEARE./Gent. [Collophon] /Printed at London by Tho. Cotes, and are/ to be sold by Iohn Benson, dwelling in/ St Dunstans Church-yard, 1640.
*2r / v ‘To the Reader’ I here presume (under favour) to present to your view, some excellent and sweetely composed Poems, of Master William Shakespeare, which in themselves appeare of the same purity, the Authour himself then living avouched; they had not the fortune by reason of their Infancie in his death, to have due accommodation of a proportionable glory, with the rest of his everliving Workes, yet the lines of themselves will afford you a more authentick approbation than my assurance any way can,to invite 337
your allowance./ In your perusal you shall finde them Serene, cleere and elegantly plaine,such gentle straines as shall recreate and not perplexe your braine, no intricate or cloudy stuffe to puzzle intellect,but perfect eloquence, such as will raise raise your admiration to his praise: this assurance I know will not differ from your acknowledgement. And certaine I am, my opinion will be seconded by the sufficiency of these ensuing Lines; I have beene somewhat solicitus to bring this forth to the perfect view of all men; and in so doing, glad to be serviceable for the continuance of glory due to the deserved Author in these his Poems. I.B.
*3r/4r ‘Upon Master William Shakespeare, the Deceased Author, and his Poems’ Leon. Digges 68 line verse in rhyming couplets.
*4v ‘Of Mr. William Shakespeare’ John Warren
A1r Title page (minus date) A2r ‘The glory of Beautie’ Son. 67, 68, 69. A3r ’Injurious Time’ Son. 60,63, 64, 65, 66. A4. ‘True Admiration’ Son. 53, 54. A4v ‘The Force of Love’ Son. 57, 58. A5r ‘The Beautie of Nature’ Son. 59. A5v ‘Loves Crueltie’ Son. 1 , 2, 3. A6r ‘Youthfull glory’ Son. 13, 14, 15. A7r ‘Good Admonition’ Son. 16, 17. A7v ‘Quicke Prevention’ Son. 7. ‘Magazine of beautie’ Son. 4, 5, 6. A8v ‘An Invitation to Marriage’ Son. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. B1v ‘False beleefe’ PP1 [Son. 138]. B2r ‘A Temptation’ PP2 [Son. 144] PP3 ‘Fast and loose’ ‘Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye’ B2v ‘True content’ Son. 21 ‘A congratulation’ Son. 38, 39, 40. B3r ‘A bashfull lover’ Son. 23 ‘Strong conceite’ Son. 22 B3v ‘A sweet provocation’ ‘Sweet Cytheria, sitting by a brooke’ PP4 ‘A constant vow’ ‘If love make me forsworn, how shall I sweare to love?’ PP5
B4r ‘The Exchange’ Son. 20 B4v ‘A disconsolation’ Son. 27, 28, 29. B5r ‘Cruell Deceit’ ‘Scarse had the Sunne dried up the dewy morn’ PP6 B5v ‘The unconstant Lover’ ‘Fair is my love, but not so fair as fickle’ PP7 B6r ‘The benefit of Friendship’ Son. 30, 31, 32.
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B6v ‘Friendly concord’ ‘If music and sweet Poetrie agree’ PP8 B7 ‘Inhumanite’ ‘Fair was the morne, when the faire Queene of Love’ PP9 ‘A congratulation’ Son. 38, 39, 40. B8r ‘Loss and gaine’ Son. 41, 42. B8v ‘Foolish disdaine’ ‘Venus with Adonis sitting by her…’ PP11 ‘Ancient Antipathy’ ‘Crabbed age and youth cannot live together.’ PP12 C1r ‘Beauties valuation’ ‘Beautie is but a vaine and doubtful good’ PP13 C1v ‘Melancholy thoughts’ Son. 44, 45. C2r ‘Loves Losse’ ‘Sweet rose, faire flower, untimely pluckt’ PP10 ‘Loves Reelefe’ Son. 33, 34, 35. C3r ‘Unanimitie’ Son. 36, 37. C3v ‘Loath to depart’ ‘Good night, good rest, ah neither be my share’ PP14 C4r ‘A Master-peece’ Son. 24. ‘Happinesse in content’ Son 25. C4v ‘A dutifull Message’ Son. 26. C5r ‘Goe and come quickly’ Son. 50, 51. C5v ‘Two faithfull friends’ Son. 46, 47. C6r ‘Carelesse neglect’ Son. 48. ‘Stoute resolution’ Son. 49. C6v ‘A Duell’ ‘It was a lordings daughter’ PP15 C7r ‘Love-sicke’ ‘On a day (alacke the day) PP16 ‘Loves labour lost’ ‘My flocks feede not ’ PP17 C8r ‘Wholesome counsell’ ‘When as thine eye hath chose the Dame’ PP18 D1r ‘Sat. fuisse’ Son. 62. ‘A living monument’ Son. 55 D1v ‘Familiaritie breeds contempt’ Son. 52. ‘Patiens Armatus’ Son. 61. D2r ‘A Valediction’ Son. 71, 72, 74. D3r ‘Nil magni Invidia’ Son. 70. ‘Love-sicke’ Son. 80, 81. D3v ‘The Picture of true love’ Son 116. D4 ‘In prayse of his Love’ Son. 82, 83, 84, 85. D5r ‘A Resignation’ Son. 86, 87. D5v ‘Sympathizing love’ ‘As it fell upon a day’ PP20 D6v ‘A request to his scornefull Love’ Son. 88, 89, 90, 91. D7v ‘A Lovers affection though his Love prove unconstant’ Son. 92, 93, 94, 95. D8v ‘Complaint for his Loves absence’ Son. 97, 98, 99. E1r ‘An invocation to his Muse’ Son. 100, 101.
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E1v ‘Constant affection’ Son. 104, 105, 106. E2v ‘Amazement’ Son. 102, 103. E3r ‘A Lovers excuse for his long Son. 109, 110. absence’ E3v ‘A complaint’ Son. 111, 112. E4r ‘Selfe flattery of her beautie’ Son. 113, 114, 115. E4v ‘Tryall of loves constancy’ Son. 117, 118, 119. E5v ‘A good construction of his Loves Son. 120 unkindnesse’ E6r ‘Errour in opinion’ Son. 121. ‘Upon the receipt of a Table Booke from his Mistriss’ Son. 122 E6v ‘A vow’ Son. 123 ‘Loves safetie’ Son. 124 E7r ‘An intreatie for her acceptance’ Son. 125
E7v ‘Upon her playing on the Virginalls’ Son. 128 ‘Immoderate Lust’ Son. 129 E8r ‘In prayse of her beautie though blacke’ Son. 127, 130, 131, 132. F1r ‘Unkinde Abuse’ Son. 133, 134. F1v ‘A Love-Suite’ Son. 135, 136. F2r ‘His heart wounded by her eye’ Son. 137, 139, 140.
F2v ‘A Protestation’ Son. 141, 142. F3r ‘An Allusion’ Son. 143. F3v ‘Life and death’ Son. 145. F4r ‘A Consideration of Death’ Son. 146. ‘Immoderate Passion’ Son. 147 F4v ‘Loves powerfull subtilty’ Son. 148, 149, 150. F5r ‘Retaliation’ Son. 78, 79. ‘Sunne Set’ Son. 73, 77. F6r ‘A monument to Fame’ Son. 107, 108. F6v ‘Perjurie’ Son. 151, 152. F7r ‘The Tale of Cephalus and Procris’ PP24 F8v ‘Cupids Treacherie’ Son. 153, 154. G1r ‘That Menelaus was cause of his PP23 own wrongs’ ‘And in another place somewhat Continuation of PP23/ PP24 resembling this.’ G2r ‘That Vulcan was Iupiter’s Smith’ PP25 ‘Mars andVenus’ G2v ‘The history how the mynotaure PP26 was begat’ G3v ‘This mynotaure when he came PP27 To growth…’ G5r ‘Achilles his concealment of his PP28 sex’ G5v ‘A Lovers Complaint’ Son. 1609 H3r ‘The amorous Epistle of Paris to PP21 Helen’
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I5v ‘Hellen to Paris’ PP22 K4v ‘The Passionate Shepheard to PP19 his love’ K5r ‘The Nimphs reply to the EH Shepheard’ K5v ‘Another of the same Nature’ EH K6v ‘Take, O take those lips away…’ MM and Rollo Duke of Normandy K6v [No title] ‘Let the bird of lowest lay’ PT K7r ‘Threnes’ ‘Beauty, Truth and Raritie’ PT K7v [No title] ‘Why should this a Desart be’ AYL.
K8r ‘An Epitaph on the admirable Dramatick poet William Shakespeare’ I.M. [John Milton, 1630 in F2 1632] K8v ‘On the death of William Shakespeare, who died in Aprill, Anno dom. 1616’ W.[illiam] B.[asse] L1r ‘An elegie on the death of that famous Writer and Actor, M. William Shakespeare’ FINIS L2r ‘An Addition of some Excellent Poems to those precedent, of Renowned Shakespeare, By other Gentlemen’ L2r ‘His Mistresse Drawne’ B.[en] I.[onson] L2v ‘Her minde’ B.[en]I.[onson] L4r ‘To Ben Iohnson’ F.[rancis] B.[eaumont] L5r ‘His Mistris Shade’ Unattributed by Benson [Herrick]. L5v ‘Lavinia walking in a frosty morning Unattributed by Benson [Was attributed to Milton in early 19th Century] L7r ‘A sigh sent to his mistriss Unattributed by Benson L7v ‘An Allegorical allusion of melancholy I.G. thoughts to Bees’ L8v ‘The Primrose’ Unattributed by Benson [Herrick] ‘A Sigh’ Unattributed by Benson [Thomas Carew] M1r ‘A Blush’ Unattributed by Benson [William Strode] M2r ‘Orpheus Lute’ Unattributed by Benson [William Strode] M2v [No title] ‘Am I dispis’d because you say/ And I believe that I am gray?...’ Unattributed by Benson [Herrick] ‘Upon a Gentlewoman
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walking on the Grasse’ Unattributed by Benson M3r ‘On his Love going to Sea’ Unattributed by Benson [Thomas Carew?] ‘Ask me no more where Unattributed by Benson love bestowes…’ [Thomas Carew]
FINIS
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APPENDIX 11.
A bibliography of 18th Century Anthologies that include Shakespeare’s texts, in chronological order.
1. Edward Bysshe The Art of English Poetry. 1702
2. Edward Bysshe The British Parnassus. 1714
3. Charles Gildon The Complete Art of Poetry. 1718
4. Anon. Thesaurus Drammaticus. 1724 2 vol. Reissued as The Beauties of the English Stage in 2 vol. in 1739 and 3 vol. in 1756 and enlarged and reissued in 4 vol. as The Beauties of the English Drama in 1777.
5. Thomas Hayward The British Muse. 1738 Reissued as The Quintessence of English Poetry or a collectionof all the beautiful passages in our poems and plays in 1740.
6. William Dodd The Beauties of Shakespear. 1752 A second edition ‘With Additions’ was published in in 1757 and third edition in 1780. An edition dated 1773 was also published in Dublin. According to Jaggard’s Shakespeare Bibiography, there is another edition dated 1782. This is possibly a reprint of the third edition, but I have been unable to trace this.
7. Samuel Derrick Poetical Dictionary; or the Beauties of the English Poets alphabetically displayed. 4 vols. 1761
8. Anon. The Sentimental Spouter. 1774
9. William Enfield The Speaker: or, miscellaneous pieces. 1774
10. Anon. The Beauties of Shakspeare Selected from his plays and poems. 1783 This was republished as The Beauties of Shakespeare selected from his works. To which are added the principal scenes in the same author in what purport to be fifth and sixth editions in 1790? and 1797?
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11. Anon. The Picturesque Beauties of Shakespeare. 1783-87
12.Vicesimus Knox Elegant Extracts… from the best English Writers And disposed under proper heads with a view to faciliatate the improvement of youth in reading and speaking.To which is prefixed an essay on Elocution. 1789
13. Anon., The New Spouter’s Companion. 1790
14. Anon., The Young Spouter. 1790
15. William Stone The Beauties of the Stage. 1792
16. J.A. Croft A Select Collection of the Beauties of Shakespeare. 1792
17. William Scott, Beauties of Eminent Writers:selected and arranged for the instruction of youth in the proper reading and reciting of the English language. 1793 and supplement 1793, Reissued in 1794 and 1795 in 2 volumes. A 2 volume edition in 1799 calls itself the 4th edition.
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APPENDIX 12. Edward Bysshe’s The Art of English Poetry.
There were editions of Bysshe’s anthology in 1702, 1705, 1708, 1710, 1714, 1718, 1724, 1739 and 1762. The anthology was repeatedly revised and enlarged and the constituent parts variously arranged in different editions. In the 1702 edition the three constituent parts have been sepearately paginated and the British Library’s copy of this (shelfmark BL 11633 bb 8) has been bound in a confused order. According to Dwight A. Culler,13 the original Collection contained 1,452 extracts from 48 writers, this was increased in the 1705 edition with 671 additional extracts, in the 1708 edition another 394 extracts were added, and in 1718 a futher 176 extracts wer included. Bysshe’s separate collection The British Parnassus: or, a compleat Common- Place-Book of English Poetry was published in 1714, coinciding with the fifth edition of The Art. This was unsuccessful commercially and remaindered copies reappeared masquerading as part of the 1718 edition of The Art .14
Shakespeare extracts in The Art of English Poetry, 6th edition, 1718
All extracts are attributed and in the case of Shakespeare (and some other dramatists) the source text is identified.
Extracts are listed under the topic heading in the order they appear in the 1718 edition.
The text shown here is that taken from The Art of English Poetry which may have been misquoted or adapted by Bysshe.
NB.The Shakespeare extracts are isolated here but in the anthology are incorporated in longer patchwork ‘poems’.
AMBITION Ambition’s like a Circle on the Water, Which never ceases to enlarge it self, Till by broad spreading it disperse to Nought. 1H6 1.3.112-144
Vaulting Ambition still o’erleaps it self.] Mac. 1.7.27 ANGER Anger is like A full-hot horse; allow him but his way
13 Dwight A. Culler, ‘Edward Bysshe and the Poet’s handbook’, PMLA 63.3 (1948), 858-885. 14 Ibid., 862. 345
Self-mettle tires him. H8 1.1.132-134 APOTHECARY and his Shop I do remember an Apothecary In tattered weeds… Were thinly scattered to make up a show. RJ 4.4.37-58 APPLAUSE ‘Caps hands and tongues applaud it to the skies’ Ham 4.5.105
Such a noise arose As the shrouds make at sea in a stiff tempest As loud, and to as many tune: hats, cloaks, Doublets I think, flew up; and had their faces Been loose, this day they had been lost. H8 4.1.73-77 ASTONISHMENT I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy Soul… Like Quils upon the fretful Porcupine. Ham 1.5.15-20 [BEAUTY A description of Cleopatra on the river Sydnus is attributed to Dryden’s All for Love and to Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra but the extract used owes more to Dryden than Shakespeare]. BOASTING Send danger from the east unto the west… To rowse a Lion than to start a Hare. […] By heaven, methinks it were and easy leap… And pluck up drowned honour by the locks. 1H4 1.3.193-196 and 199-203. CALM We often see against some Storme A Silence in the Heavens, the Rack stand still; The Loud Wind Speechless, and the Orb below As hush as Death. Ham 2.2.486-489 CHARNEL HOUSE Behold a charnel house O’er cover’d quite with dead mens rattling Bones, With reeky shanks, and yellow chapless skulls. RJ 4.1.81-83 CLIFF Behold a Cliff whose high and bending Head Looks dreadfully down on the roaring Deep. Lear 4.1.67-68 How fearful And dizzy ‘tis to cast ones eyes so low… Cannot be heard so high. – Lear 4.5.11-22 COMET Hung be the Heav’ns with Black; yield Day to Night: Comets, importing Change to Times and States, Brandish your Golden Tresses in the Skies, And with them scourge the bad revolted Stars, That hath consented unto Henry’s Death. 1H6 1.1.1-5 When Beggrs dye, there are no Comets seen,
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The Heav’ns themselves blaze forth the Death of Princes. JC 2.2.30-31 CONSCIENCE Conscience is a Word that Cowards Use Devis’d at first to keep the Strong in Awe R3 5.6.39-40 CONSPIRACY O conspiracy Sham’st thou to show thy dang’rous Brow by Night… To hid thee from prevention. JC 2.1.77-79 CUCKOLD O Curse of Marriage Destiny unshunnable, like death. Oth 3.3.272-279 I had been happy if the general camp… So had I nothing known. Oth 3.3.350-353 I swear ‘tis better to be much abus’d Than but to know a little. Oth 3.3.341-2
What sense had I of her sto’n hours of lust … and he’s not robbed at all. Oth 3.3.342-348 NB. occasionally uses speech prefixes and indicates missing dialogue with a dash. CURSE Whip me, ye Devils. Blow me about in Winds, roast me in Sulpher; Wash me in steep-down Gulphs of liquid fire. Oth. 5.2.284-287 Let heaven kiss earth… And Darkness be the Burier of the Dead. 2H4 1.1.153-160 DARKNESS Oh she doth teach the Torches to burn bright! Her Beauty hangs upon the Cheeks of Night [Fairer than the snow upon a Raven’s Back;] Or a rich Jewel in an Ethiop’s Ear; RJ 1.5.43-45 [Were she in yonder Sphere, she’d shine so bright, That Birds would Sing and think the Day were breaking. Otway, Caius Marius attr. Shakespeare] DEATH Cowards die many times before their death… but once.’ JC 2.2.32-33 Ay, but to die and go we know not where… To what we fear of death.’ MM 3.1.118-132 DEFORMITY Why, love renounc’d me in my Mother’s Womb For I should not deal in her soft laws… That carries no Proportion like the Dam. 3H6 3.2.153-162 DEGENERATE The Wicked when compar’d with the more Wicked… Stand in some Rank of Praise Lear 2.2.430-432 DESPAIR There’s nothing in this world can make me joy. Life’s as tedious as a twice told tale Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man KJ 3.4.107-109
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DISDAIN Disdain and Scorn ride sparkling in her eyes Despising what they look upon. MA 3.1.51-52 DISEASE Before the curing of a Strong Disease… On the Departure most of all shew Evil. KJ 3.4. 112-114 And where the greater Malady is fix’t … The Tempest in my Mind … Save what beats there. Lear 3.4.8-14 DISSEMBLER Why, I can Smile and Murther while I smile… And frame my Face to all Occasions. 3H6 3.2.182-185 PUBLICK ENTRIES [Subsection of ENTHUSIASM] Great Bullingbrook--- Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed… And barbarism itself have pitied him. R2 5.2.6-36 What Tributaries follow him to Rome … Made in her concave shores.’ JC 1.1.33-47 FAIRIES They Dance their Ringlets to the whistling Wind: MND 2.1.86- The Honey-Bags steal from the Humble Bees… To fan the Moon beams from their sleeping Eyes. MND 3.1.160-165 Robin Goodfellow I fright the Maidens of the Villages, Skim milk and sometimes labour in the Quern… Mislead night wanderers, laughing at their harm. And sometimes I lurk in a Gossips Bowl… A merrier hour was never wasted there. MND 1.2.35-39 and 48-57 [Complaints of FALSHOOD Yet this was she, ye very gods, the very she Who in my arms lay panting all the night; … A little longer darkness. Dryden’s Troilus and Cressida attributed Shakespeare] FEAR [Fear is the last of ills; Dryden All for Love; In time we hate that which we often fear. AC 1.3.12] FLATTERY Nay, do not think I flatter.. Where gain may follow feigning. Ham 3.2 54-60 FOND She would hang on him As if increase of Appetite had grown By what it fed on. Ham 1.2.143-145
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[FORTITUDE In struggling with misfortunes Lyes the true Proof of Virtue… In Storms of Fortune. Dryden’s Troilus and Cressida 1.1 attr. Shakespeare and Dryden ] Thou has been as one in suffering all that suffers nothing… To sound what stop she pleases. Ham 3.2.63-69 FORTUNE When Fortune means to Men most Good She looks upon them with a threatning eye. KJ 3.4.119-120 FRIEND The friends thou hast, and their Adoption tried Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel. Ham 1.3. 62-63 Ever note, Lucilius When love begins to sicken and decay… Sink in the Trial. JC 4.2.19-27 FROWN [All these wrongs ] Have never made me sow’r my Patient Cheek Or bend one wrinkle on my Face. R2 2.1.170-171
He parted frowning from me, as if Ruin Leap’d from his Eyes. So looks the chafed Lion Upon the daring Huntsman, who has gall’d him; Then makes him nothing. H8 3.2.206-209 FUTURITY [Sandwiched between lines from Dryden and Cowley ] To be or not to be … And lose the name of Action. Ham 3.1.58-90 GHOST It faded at the crowing of the cock Ham 1.1.138 And started like a guilty thing Upon a fearful summons
Be thou a spirit of Health or goblin damn’d With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls Ham 1.4.20-24/25-37
I am thy father’s spirit … purged away. Ham 1.5.9-13 GREATNESS Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness This is the state of man. Today he puts forth The tender leaves of hopes…. Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me. H8 3.2.352-365 GRIEF Tis not alone my inky cloak… These but the trappings and the suits of woe’ Ham 1.2.77-86
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My grief lies all within… There lies the substance. R2 4.1.285-289
Give sorrow words: the Grief that does not speak, Whispers the o’erfraught Head, and bids it break. Mac 4.3.210-211
Of comfort no man speak… of the earth. R2 3.2.140-149
But to persevere in obstinate consolement … This must be so. Ham 1.2.92-106 GOLD Gold! Yellow, Glittering, Precious Gold… With Senators on the Bench. Tim. 4.3.26-38 HUNTING ‘I was with Hercules and Cadmus once… Was never hallow’d to, nor cheered with Horn’ MND 4.1.111-124
‘My hounds shall make the Welkin answer them, And fetch shrill Echo from the hollow Earth’ Shrew 0.2 44-45 JEALOUSY Following from extracts from Dryden, long passages from three scenes in Othello (partly) provided with speech prefixes are confusingly interspersed with passages from Hamlet and Troilus and Cressida.
Think’st thou I’d make a life of jealousy… Is once to be resolved. Oth 3.3.181-184
I’ll see before I doubt… Away at once with love or jealousy Oth 3.3.193-196
If I do prove her haggard, … To prey at Fortune. Oth 3.3.264-267
Villain be sure you prove my love a whore… Than answer my naked wrath. --- Oth 3.3.363-378 Make me see it; or at least to prove it, omitting the ThatProbation bear no Hinge, no Loop Iago’s lines To hang a Doubt on, or Woe upon thy Life… Greater than that.
Give me a living Reason She’s disloyal Oth 3.3.314
I’ll have some proof… I’ll not endure it. I’ll be satisfy’d. Oth 3.3.319-395
It is impossible you should see this Oth .3.407
But yet I say If Imputation and strong Circumstance
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Which lead directly to the Door of Truth Will give you Satisfaction you may have it. Oth 3.3.410-413
Othello O that the Slave had forty thousand Lives! … ‘Tis of Aspicks Tongues. Like to the Pontic Sea… Swallow them up. Oth 3.3.447-454 and 456-463 O you have done an act That blots the face and blush of modesty… Is thought sick at the act’ Ham 3.4.39-44 and 47-50 Thou art as honest As Summer Flies are in the Shambles … That sense aches at thee! Was this fair paper, this most goodly Book.. And will not hear it. Oth 4.1.68-71 and 73-82 Let Ignominy brand thy hated name … And blots the noble work. Dryden’s T&C attr. Shakespeare TC]
Had it pleased Heav’n To try me with Afflictions… There look Grim as Hell. Oth 4.2.49-66
For Oh! What damned Minutes tell he o’er Who Doats yet Doubts; suspects, yet strongly Loves And Doubts and Fears to Jealousie will turn. Oth 3.3.173-174 JOY O my soul’s joy If after every tempest some such calmness… Succeeds in unknown fate. Oth 2.1.185-194 My plenteous joys Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves. Mac 1.4.33-35 KING O Polish’d Perturbation! Golden Care… That scalds with safety. 2H4 4.3.154-162 LIFE To-morrow, To-morrow and To-morrow Creep in the stealing Pace from Day to Day, To the ast Minute of revolving Time, And all our Yesterdays have lighted Fools To their eternal homes. Lite’s but a walking Shadow; a poor Player That frets and struts his Hour upon a Stage And then is heard no more. It is a Tale Told by an Idiot, full of Sound and Fury Signifying nothing. Mac 5.5.18-27 LOVE For your love does lie
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As near and as nigh Unto my heart within; As my eye to my nose, Or my leg to my hose Or my flesh unto my skin. Locrine attr. Shakespeare [All constant lovers shall in future ages… Let it be said as false as Cressida. Dryden’s Troilus and Cressida attr.to both Dryden and Shakespeare] Gallop apace you fiery footed steeds… And pay no worship to the gaudy sun. RJ 3.2.1-25 Perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee; And when I love thee not, Chaos is come again. Oth 3.3.91-93 LUST As virtue never will be moved… And prey on garbage. Ham 1.5.53-57 MAD Now see that noble and most sovereign Reason Light sweet Bells jangled out of Tune and harsh; Ham 3.1.160- Mad as the Seas and Winds, when both contend Which is the mightier. Ham 4.1.6-7 She hems, and beats her breast Spurns enviously at Straws… Tho’ nothing suit, yet much, unhappily. Ham 4.5.6-13 Tom-a-Bedlam I have bethought myself To take the barest and the poorest shape …Inforce their charity. Lear 2.2.169-183 MEMORY Remember thee! …Unmix’d with baser matter. Ham. 1.5.95-104 MORNING Behold the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastern hill. Ham 1.1.147-148
[Behold what streaks Of light embroider all the cloudy east… Otway’s Caius Marius While all the birds bring music to his levy 4.1 attri. Shakepeare RJ 3.5.10] MUSIC If music be the food of love… Stealing and giving odour. TN 1.1.1-7
For Orpheus’ Lute softens Steel and Stone Makes Tigers calm, and huge Leviathans Forsake unsounded Deeps, and Dance on Sands. TGV 3.2 77-80 NECROMANCER By my rough magick I have oft bedimm’d
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The Noontide sun… By my so potent art. Temp 5.1.41-50 PATIENCE Come what may Patience and Time run through the roughest day Mac 1.3.145-146
Men counsel and give comfort to that Grief …And made a pish at chance and sufferance.’ MA 5.1.20-38 and 35-38 PLAYER I can counterfeit the deep Tragedian … At any time to grace my stratagems R3 3.5.5-11
Is it not monstrous that this player here… The very faculty of eyes and ears. Ham 2.2.553-568
[Like a player, Bellowing his Passion till he break the Spring…. Dryden’s Troilus and Cressida attr. Shakespeare] POPLACE Dissentious rogues… Upon your favours swims with fins of lead. Cor 1.1.162-178
The Commonwealth is sick of her own choice… Cry’st now, O earth yield us that King again, And take thou this. 2H4 1.3.87-107
[By heav’n ‘twas never well since sawcy Priests Grew to be masters of the list’ning Herd And into Mitres cleft the Regal Crown Dryden’s Troilus and Cressida attr. Shakespeare] POPULAR All tongues speak of him, and the bleared sights… Leads fill’d and Ridges hors’d. Cor 2.1.202-208 I’ve seen the dumb men throng to see him … A shower and a thunder with their caps and shouts. Cor 2.1.258-264 [RAGE Oppose not Rage, while Rage is in its force … And dry-shod we may pass the naked Ford Dryden’s Troilus and Cressida attr. Shakespeare.] REPENTANCE O my offence is rank…. May one be pardon’d and retain th’offence. Ham 3.2.36-55
In the corrupted currents of this world… All may be well. Ham. 3.2.57-72 REPUTATION Good name in man or woman….
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And makes me poor indeed. Oth 3.3.160-166 REVENGE Now will I do it; now he is praying… As hell whereto it goes. Then I with wings as Swift… Ham 3.2.73-95 and Will sweep to my revenge. 1.5.29-31 RUMOUR Rumour is a Pipe… Can play upon it’ 2H4 Induction 15-20 SAILING The threaden sails Borne with th’invisible and creeping Wind … Breasting the lofty surge. H5 3.0.10-13 SHIP This floating Ram did bear his horns above … Davenant’s The his belly burst in pieces. Enchanted Isle, attr. Shakespeare The Tempest SICKNESS He had a fever when he was in Spain… As a sick girl. JC 1.2.121-130
And thus the wretch, whose fever-weakened joints… Out of his keeper’s arms. 2H4 1.1.140-143 SIGH He raised a sign so hideous and profound, That it did seem to shatter all his bulk. Ham 2.1.95-96 [SILENCE Silent as are the lamps that burn in Tombs. Nahum Tate’s Lear] SLEEP Sleep that locks up the senses from their care; [NahumTate’s version] The death of each day’s life; tir’d Nature’s Bath Balm of hurt minds, great Nature’s second course,.. Chief nourisher of life’s feast. Mac 2.2.35-38
O sleep, O gentle sleep Nature’s best nurse! how have I frighted thee… Deny it to a king? 2H4 3.1.5-30 SOLDIER The tyrant custom Has made the flinty and steel couch of War My thrice driven Bed of Down. Oth 1.3.228-230
Rude am I in my speech … More than pertains to feats of Broils and Battel. Oth 1.3.81-87 [SWIMMING I saw him beat the billows under him… Davenant’s The with his strong arms to shore. Enchanted Isle attr. Shakespeare The Tempest]
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Accoutr’d as we were, we both plunged in… And stemming it with Hearts of Controversy. JC 1.2.107-111 TEARS Thy heart is big, get thee apart and weep … Begin to water. JC 3.1.285-288 TEMPEST Things that love night Love not such nights as these… These dreadful Summoners Grace. Lear 3.2.42-59 THOUGHTS I have been studying how to compare This prison where I live unto the world… By being nothing. R2 5.5.1-41 VICISSITUDE [The lowest and most abject Thing of Fortune … The worst return to better. Nahum Tate’s King Lear] There is a tide in the affairs of men… Is bound in shallows and in miseries. JC 4.2.270-273 USURPER A sceptre snatched with an unruly hand … Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up. KJ 3.4.135-148 [VIRTUE Our life is short, but to extend that span To vast eternity is Virtue’s work. Dryden’s Troilus and Cressida] WANT ‘Famine is in thy cheeks Need and oppression staring in thy looks Contempt and beggary lie on thy back’. RJ 5.1.69-71 WAR ‘It was the time when creeping murmur… Give dreadful note of preparation.’ H5 4.0.1-14 [The fight grows hot, the whole War’s now at work And the goar’d battle bleeds in every vein. Lear 5.2 ‘as performed’] WEEPING His eyes Altho’ unus’d unto the melting mood Drop tears more fast than the Arabian tree Her medicinal gums. Oth 5.2.356-360 WITCH ‘What are these So wither’d, and so wild in their attire… Upon her skinny lips Mac 1.3.37-43
If you can look into the seeds of time And say which grain will grow and which will not; I conjure you, by that which you professe To answere me. Mac 1.3.56-58
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Though you untie the winds and let ‘em fight.. Ev’n till Distruction sicken, answer me. Mac 4.1.68-76
On the corner of the moon … Shall raise such artificial sprites. Mac 3.5.23-27
Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed… Then our charm is firm and good. Mac 4.1.1-38 [lines rearranged] But see they’re gone The Earth has bubbles as the water has… Melted as breath into the Wind.’ Mac 1.3.77-80 [WOMEN A strange dissembling sex we women are … And what he most desires he throws away. Dryden’s Troilus and Cressida attr. Shakespeare] WOUNDS Like dumb mouths, his wounds Opened their ruby lips.’ JC 3.1.263 There Duncan lay…. Ruin’s wasteful entrance. Mac 2.3.11-114 WRETCH Look who comes here! A grave unto a soul Holding the eternal spirit ‘gainst her will In the vile prison of afflicted breath.’ KJ 3.417-19 [YOUTH The spring of life. The bloom of gawdy years Before the tender nerves had sprung his limbs Dryden Troilus and And knotted into strength. Cressida attri. Shakespeare.]
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APPENDIX 13. The extracts from A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Gildon’s Shakespeariana (1718), in Dodd’s The Beauties of Shakespear (1752) and in The Beauties of Shakespeare (1783) The title/topic heading under which the extracts were printed is indicated
Gildon Dodd 1783 Beauties Impatience 1.1.1-6 ‘Our nuptial hour/Draws on apace…’ A Father’s Seduction Resentment against 1.1.27-38 Love, without his ‘This man hath witch’d consent the bosom of my 1.1.24-38 child…’ ‘Stand forth Demetrius,. My noble lord/This man has my consent…’ The Authority of a Act I Scene I Obedience Father A Father’s Authority 1.1.46-51 1.1.47-51 1.1.47-51 ‘Be advised, fair ‘To you your father maid/to you your should be as a father… god…’ A Nun Nun Nun 1.1.68-78 1.1.67-78 1.1.67-78 ‘Know of your ‘Therefore, fair Hermia, youth, examine will question your desires,/ your blood…’ Know of your youth…’ The Fate of True True Love ever cross’d Crosses in Love Love 1.1.132-149 1.1.134, 141-149 1.1.134-149 For aught that I could ‘The course of true love ‘The course of true ever read,/could ever never did run smooth’ love never did run hear by tale or ‘Or if there were a smooth…’ history,/The course of sympathy in choice…’ true love…’ [Adds subsequent SPs] [Edits out Hermia’s interjections] Scene II Moon 1.1.209-11 ‘When Phoebe doth behold/Her silver visage in the wat’ry glass/ Decking with with liquid pearl the bladed grass…’
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Love Love Love 1.1.233-245 1.1.232-241 1.1.232-241 ‘Love can transpose ‘Things base and vile, to form and holding no quality/ Love dignity…’ can transpose…’ Act II Scene I Puck or Robin Goodfellow Robin Good-Fellow 2.1.43-57 2.1.43-57 ‘I am that merry wanderer of the night…’
Fairy Jealousy and Fairy Jealousy, and the Fairies Jealousy the ill Effects of it Effects of it 2.1.81-117 2.1.81-117 2.1.81-114 ‘These are the forgeries of jealousy…’ Lover’s Presence exclude Solitude 2.1.220-226 ‘Your virtue is my privilege…’ Love in Idleness Mermaid 2.1.148-168 2.1.148-154 ‘Thou rememb’rest/ since once I sat upon a promontory…’ [Dodd omits Puck’s interjection l.154] A Fairy Bower A Fairy Bank 2.1.249-254 2.1.249-256 ‘I know a bank where the wild thyme blows…’ Similes 2.2.143-146 ‘For as a surfeit of the sweetest things…’
Fairy Courtesies Fairies’ Employment 3.1.156-166 3.1.156-165 ‘Be kind and courteous to this gentleman…’ Scene VII Female Female Friendship Friendship 3.2.199-220 3.2.199-220 ‘Is all the counsel that we
two shared…’
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Night 3.2.178-181 ‘Dark night, that from the eye his function takes…’
Day-Break Morning 3.2.380-383 3.2.380-388 ‘Night’s swift dragons cut the clouds full fast…’ Act IV Scene I Dew in Flowers 4.1.52-55 ‘And that same dew, which sometime on the buds…’ Scene II Hunting 4.1.108-117 ‘We will, fair queen, up to the mountain’s top…’ Hounds Hounds 4.1.118-124 4.1.118-125 ‘My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind…’ The Force of Fancy Act V Scene I The Imagination 5.1.4-22 Power of Imagination 5.1.4-22 ‘Lovers and madmen 5.1.7-17 have such seething ‘The lunatic, the lover Brains…’ and the poet/ Are of imagination all compact…’ Simpleness and Duty 5.1.82-86 ‘For never anything can be amiss…’ [Dialogue with second SP printed, but not first] Modest Duty always Embarassment acceptable 5.1.93-105 5.1.93-103 ‘Where I have come great clerks have pusposed…’ Scene II Clock Night 5.1.354 5.1.354-5 ‘The iron tongue of ‘The iron tongue of midnight hath told midnight hath told twelve’ twelve/ Lovers to bed! ‘Tis almost fairy time’
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Description of Night Scene II Night Night by the Fairy 5.2.1-12 5.2.1-18 5.2.1-16
‘Now the hungry lion roars…’
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APPENDIX 14 Kearsley’s The Beauties of Shakespeare The ‘principal Scenes’ from Shakespeare’s plays printed in the sixth edition of The Beauties of Shakespeare. The Tempest. 3.1 Measure for Measure 3.1-174 As You Like It 2.7.1-174 Macbeth. 2.2. [2.1.31-73] Macbeth. 3.4 Macbeth 4.1 King John 4.1 Richard II 5.5 1 Henry IV 1.2 1 Henry IV 2.5 [2.5.113-553] 2 Henry IV 3.1 2 Henry IV 4.4 [4.3.1-369] Henry V 4.5 [4.1.85-302] Richard III 1.4 Henry VIII 3.2 [3.2.351-460] Henry VIII 4.2 Julius Caesar 2.1[2.1.228-308] Julius Caesar 3.2.[3.2.1-254] Julius Caesar 4.3 [4.2.53-209] Timon of Athens 4.3[4.3.1-400] Cymbeline 2.2 Cymbeline 3.3 King Lear 3.2 King Lear 3.4 King Lear 3.6[ 3.6 ?] King Lear 4.6 [4.5.80-224] Romeo and Juliet 2.2[2.1.42-234] Romeo and Juliet 3.3 Romeo and Juliet 4.3 Hamlet 1.2. [1.2.129-257] Hamlet 2.3 [1.3.1-136] Hamlet 2.4.[1.4] Hamlet 2.4 [1.5] Hamlet 3.4 Hamlet 5.1 [5.1.1-212] Othello 1.3 [1.3.48-300] Othello 3.3 Othello 5.2 [5.2.1-174] [References in square brackets are to the Oxford Complete Works (2nd ed.) where these differ from the reference given in the anthology itself.]
At the end of the book is an Index that places topics in alphabetical order that are dealt with on a play by play basis [also in alphabetical order] and page references to the relevant page – this works as an index to the first ‘beauties’ half of the book. Then follows an index of the Select scenes in the order they are printed. 361
APPENDIX 15 William Enfield’s The Speaker
I. Shakespeare speeches and dialogues in William Enfield’s The Speaker. Extract title First Line Source In Book II ‘Narrative Pieces’ 1. ‘Othello’s Apology’ ‘Most potent, grave, and reverend Oth 1.3.76- signiors…’ 95,127-168 No SPs In Book III‘Didactic Pieces’ 2. ‘Hamlet’s Instructions ‘Speak the speech, I pray you, as I Ham 3.2.1-14, to the Players’ pronounced it to you…’ 16-35, 37-43. No SPs In Book V ‘Orations and Harangues’ 3. ‘Speech of Brutus on ‘Romans, countrymen and JC 3.1.13-34, the death of Caesar’ lovers…’ 36-47 No SPs 4. ‘Gloucester’s Speech ‘Brave peers of England, pillars of 2H6 1.1.72-100 to the Nobles’ the state…’ No SPs In Book VI ‘Dialogues’ 5. ‘Duke and Lord’ ‘Now, my co-mates, and brothers AYL 2.1.1-17, in exile…’ 21-68 6. ‘Duke and Jaques’ ‘Why, how now, monsieur…’ AYL 2.7.9-87 7. ‘Henry and Lord Chief ‘I am assur’d, if I be measur’d 2H4 5.2.65-144 Justice’ rightly…’ 8. ‘Archbishop of ‘My lord, I’ll tell you, that self bill H5 1.1.1-70 Canterbury and Bishop is urg’d…’ of Ely’ 9. ‘Hamlet and Horatio’ ‘Hail to your lordship…’ Ham 1.2.160- 252 10. ‘Brutus and Cassius’ ‘Will you go see the order of the JC 1.2.27-178 course…’ 11. ‘Belarius, Guiderius ‘A goodly day not to keep Cym 3.3.1-78 and Arviragus’ house…’ In Book VII ‘Descriptive Pieces’ 12. ‘The Progress of Life’ ‘All the world’s a stage…’ AYL 2.7.139- 166 No SPs 13. ‘Entry of Bolingbroke ‘My lord, you told me you would R2 5.2.1-38 and Richard into tell the rest…’ London’ 14. ‘Life’ ‘Reason thus with life…’ MM 3.1.6-41 No SPs 15. ‘Hotspur’s Description ‘I do remember when the fight 1H4 1.3.29-63 of a Fop’ was done…’ No SPs 16. ‘Clarence’s Dream’ ‘Why looks your grace so heavily R3 1.4.1-70 today? …’ 18. ‘Apothecary’ ‘I do remember an apothecary…’ RJ 5.1.37-55 No SPs
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In Book VIII ‘Pathetic Pieces’ 19. ‘Orlando and Adam’ ‘Who’s there…’ AYL 2.3.1-77 20. ‘Scroop and Richard’ ‘More health and happiness betide R2 3.2.87-173 my liege…’ 21. ‘Hotspur and ‘Sit cousin Percy; sit good cousin 1H4 3.1.6-59 Glendower’ Hotspur…’ 22. ‘Hotspur reading a ‘But for my own part…’ 1H4 2.4.1-34 Letter’ 23. ‘Henry IV’s Soliloquy ‘How many thousands of my 2H4 3.1.4-31 on Sleep’ poorest subjects…’ No SPs 24. ‘Henry IV and Prince ‘I never thought to hear you speak 2H4 4.3.220- Henry’ again…’ 353 25. ‘Henry V to his ‘What’s he that wishes more men H5 4.3.18-67 Soldiers’ from England (sic)…’ No SPs 26. ‘Henry VI, Warwick ‘How fares my lord? Speak 2H6 3.3.1-33 and Cardinal Beaufort’ Beaufort to thy sovereign…’ 27. ‘Wolsey and ‘Farewell, a long farewell to all H8 3.2.352-460 Cromwell’ my greatness…’ 28. ‘Lear’ ‘Blow winds and crack your Lear 3.2.1- cheeks…’ 9,14-24,49-60 No SPs 29. ‘Macbeth’s Soliloquy’ ‘Is this a dagger which I see Mac 2.1.33-64 before me…’ No SPs 30. ‘Macduff, Malcolm ‘See who comes here…’ Mac 4.3.160- and Rosse’ 242 31. ‘Antony’s Soliloquy ‘O pardon me, thou bleeding piece JC 3.1.257-276 over Caesar’s Body’ of earth…’ No SPs 32. ‘Anthony’s funeral ‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen…’ JC 3.2.74-108, Oration over Caesar’s 167-195, 205- Body. 225. No SPs 33. ‘The Quarrel of Brutus ‘That you have wronged me doth JC 4.2.53-177 and Cassius’ appear in this…’ 34. ‘Othello and Iago’ ‘My noble lord…’ Oth 3.3.94-261 35. ‘Hamlet’s Soliloquy on ‘O that this too too solid flesh…’ Ham 1.2.129- his Mother’s Marriage’ 159 No SPs 36. ‘Hamlet and Ghost’ ‘Angels and ministers of grace…’ Ham 1.4.20- 104 37. ‘Hamlet’s Soliloquy on ‘To be, or not to be…’ Ham 3.1.58-90 Death’ No SPs 38. ‘Soliloquy of the King ‘Oh! my offence is rank…’ Ham 3.2.36-72 in Hamlet’ No SPs NB. Speech prefixes provided unless otherwise indicated.
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II. Speeches from Shakespeare’s plays printed in William Scott’s Beauties of Eminent Writers, 1793 and Supplement, 1794
The 1793 Supplement and 1794 Volume I prints:
‘Hamlet’s Advice to the player’
‘Cassius instigating Brutus to join the Conspiracy against Caesar’
’Falstaff’s Encomiums on Sack’
‘Henry V to his Soldiers at the Siege of Harfleur’
Hamlet’s Soliloquy on his delaying to revenge his father’s death’
‘Soliloquy of Hamlet on Life and Death
‘Falstaff’s Soliloquy on Honour’
‘Falstaff and Bardolph (“Bardolph, am I not taken away vilely…”)
‘Shylock and Tubal’ (‘A diamond cost me two score ducats in Frankfort…’) NB. these last were two removed from the second edition
‘The World Compared to a Stage’.
Volume 1 1794 adds
‘Queen Mab’,
‘Henry V on Royalty’,
‘Henry V before Agincourt’,
‘Brutus on the Death of Caesar’
‘Anthony’s Funeral Oration’.
Volume 2 (1794) adds
‘Henry IV’s Soliloquy on receiving news of a rebellion’ (“How many thousands of my poorest subjects…”).
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APPENDIX 16. Beauties of the English Stage; or dramatic companion.
Shakespeare extracts in W. Stone’s Beauties of the English Stage; or dramatic companion.
Page. Title Extract Source 10 ‘Jaques’ ‘All the world’s a stage…’ AYL 2.7.139-166 15 ‘Oliver’ ‘Good morrow, fair ones; …’ AYL 4.3.76-183 29 ‘Philario’ ‘See iachimo Cym 2.4.26-152 Posthumous: The swiftest harts have posted you by land…’ 33 ‘Posthumus’ ‘Is there no way for men to be, Cym 2.5.1-35 but women…’ 34 ‘Posthumus, with a ‘Yea bloody cloth, I’ll keep Cym 5.1.1-33 bloody handkerchief’ thee…’ 53 ‘Hubert’ ‘My lord, they say five moons KJ 4.2.183-270 were seen tonight…’ 142 ‘Macbeth’ ‘If it were done, when ‘tis Mac 1.7.1-82 done, then ‘twere well/ It were done quickly… 144 ‘Macbeth and a ‘Go bid thy mistress, when my Mac 2.1..31-64 servant’ drink is ready/ She strike upon and 2.2.1-72 the bell. Get thee to bed/ Is this a dagger…’ 207 ‘Mercutio’ ‘O then I see queen Mab hath RJ 1.4. 53 and been with you… 55-88 208 ‘Romeo’ ‘He jests on scars that never RJ 2.1.43-234 felt a wound… 213 ‘Othello’ Most potent grave and Oth 1.3..76-94 reverend signiors… 214 ‘Iago’ ‘That Cassio loves her I do Oth 2.1.285-311 well believe…’ 215 ‘Othello’ ‘Excellent wench. Perdition Oth 3.3.91-261 catch thy soul… 220 ‘Iago’ ‘I will in Cassio’s lodging lose Oth 3.3.325-482 this handkerchief…
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APPENDIX 17.
I. A bibliography of 19th Century Anthologies collecting from many writers, in chronological order.
1. George Ellis, Specimens of the Early English Poets (London, 1790). Three further editions – all expanded and in 3 vol., 1801, 1803 and 1811.
2. Robert Anderson, A Complete Edition of the Poets of Great Britain, 14 vols. (London,1793-5).
3. Joseph Ritson, The English Anthology, 3 vols. (London: C. Clarke, 1793-4).
4. Vicesimus Knox, Elegant Extracts (London, 1801). This was re-issued several times in the early part of the century [1801, 1803, 1807 - an abridged version The Poetical Epitome, 1809, 1816] and a new edition prepared by J.G. Percival was published in 1842.
5. William Enfield, The Speaker (London, 1800). This was revised and re-issued numerous times in the nineteenth century: the British Library catalogue lists 28 editions in the first half of the century. [1800,1800, 1801, 1803, 1803, 1805,1806,1808,1808,1808, 1808,1811, 1814, 1815,1816,1821, 1822, 1823, 1826,1826, 1832,1835,1835,1840,1850,1851,1858, 1860.]
6. Alexander Chalmers, The Works of the English poets from Chaucer to Cowper, 21 vols. (London: 1810).
7. John Pennie, The Harp of Parnassus: A new selection of classical English poetry…designed or Schools and young readers (London: Whittaker, 1822).
8. George Croly, The Beauties of the British Poets (London: R.B. Seeley and W. Burnside,1828).
10. Samuel Carter Hall, The Book of Gems.The Poets and Artists of Great Britain, 3 vols. (London: Saunders and Otley, 1836).
11. Robert Chambers, Chambers Cyclopedia of English Literature, 2 vols. (London, 1843-4,Revised edition published William and Robert Chambers London and Edinburgh 1858 – 2 vols . Editions in the British Library are the 4th edn. 1879 and editions of 1901/2. Numerous American editions.
12. James Leigh Hunt, Imagination and Fancy; or Selections from the Best English Poets, illustrative of those first Requisites of their Art; with marking of the best passages, critical notices of the writers, and an essay in answer to the question “What is poetry?” (London: Smith Elder & Co, 1844).
13. George Gilfillan, The Book of British Poesy, Ancient and Modern: being Select Extracts from our best poets, arranged in chronological order. With an Essay on British Poetry (London: William Tegg & Co. for John Walker, 1851).
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14. Charles Anderson Dana, The Household Book of Poetry (London; New York: D. Appleton & Co, 1859) also 1868.
15. William Allingham [‘Giraldus’], Nightingale Valley. A collection including a great number of the Choicest Lyrics and Short Poems in the Englsih Language (London: Bell & Daldy, 1860). Second edition published in 1862 under the title Nightingale Valley. A collection of choice lyrics and short poems from the time of Shakespeare to the Present Day,
16. F.T. Palgrave, The Golden Treasury (London: Macmillan & Co., 1861).
17.Coventry Patmore, The Children’s Garland from the Best Poets (London: Macmillan, 1861). Revised edition 1862, further editions 1866,1871, 1874, 1877, 1879, 1882, 1884, 1891, 1892.
18. Robert Inglis, Gleanings from the English poets, Chaucer to Tennyson (Edinburgh: Gall and Inglis, 1862). Further edition in 1881.
19. William and Robert Chambers, Readings in English Poetry: A Collection of Specimens from our best Poets from AD. 1558 to 1860, chronologically arranged with Biographical Notices and explanatory Notes (London & Edinburgh: William and Robert Chambers, 1865).
20. J.C. M. Bellew, Poet’s Corner. A Manual for Students in English poetry. With Biographical Sketches of the Authors (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1868).
21. Richard Chenevix Trench, A Household Book of English Poetry (London: Macmillan & Co. 1868).
22. F.T. Palgrave, The Children’s Treasury of Lyrical Poetry (London: Macmillan & Co., 1875).
23. Anon., The Girls’ Book of Poetry. A Selection of Short Pieces, Lyrical, Descriptive,pathetic and narrative. From British and American Poets (London: Ward Lock & Co., 1883).
24. Anon., The Boys’ Book of Poetry … including selections … from English and American poets (London: Ward Lock & Co. 1884).
25. A. Quiller-Couch, The Golden Pomp (London: Methuen, 1895).
II. A bibliography of 19th century anthologies taking only from Shakespeare.
1. William Dodd, The Beauties of Shakespeare (London: Sherwood, Neely and Jones, 1818).
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This was frequently re-published during the nineteenth century. There is some confusion as to exactly how many times it reappeared due to the several re-issues of another eighteenth-century title, Kearsley’s 1783 The Beauties of Shakespeare. Jaggard’s 1911 Shakespere Bibliography is often relied on and this indicates that there were 34 nineteenth-century editions of Dodd between 1811 and 1893, but some of these were in fact of Kearsley’s collection – an 1811 edition published in London by A. Wilson and an 1830 edition published in London by Sainsbury. The British Library catalogue list 22 nineteenth-century editions published in Britain between 1818 and 1893 which are definitely versions of Dodd’s original, but there may have been more and reprints may not appear in the catalogue. The 1818 edition, which cut out all Dodd’s lengthy footnotes, was published in London by Sherwood Neeley & Jones and forms the template for subsequent editions. I set out below the nineteenth- century editions of Dodd listed in the British Library catalogue: a. 1818 ( London: Sherwood, Neely & Jones) – includes ‘Remarks on the life and writings of WilliamShakespeare by S. Britton’ and is illustrated with Thompson’s vignette engravings lifted from Whittingham’s Shakespeare in Seven volumes with Two Hundred and Thirty Embellishments (Chiswick: C. Whittingham, 1813-14). b. 1824 (London: Baynes & Son). c. 1824 (London: C.& J. Rivington). d. 1824 (London: John Bumpus). e. 1825 (London: J.F. Dove). f. 1825 (London:T.Tegg). g. 1830 (London: J.F. Dove). h. 1830 (London: Jones & Co). i. 1835 (London: Smith). – ‘to which is added the life of Shakespeare: with criticisms on some of his plays by Samuel Johnson’.
j. 1839 (London: Scott, Webster & Geary) - a revised version in 1841 which provides a plot outline for each play and illustrations and introductory essay on the life and writings of Shakespeare. Advertisement refers to Dodd as having been ‘the means of rendering familiar to the youthful reader many of the finest portions of his writings, and thus created the taste which has led to a more complete acquaintanceship with this our greatest and best of poets and philosophers’.
k. 1846 (Halifax: Milner). l. 1854 (London: E. Moxon). m. 1854 (Halifax: Milner & Sowerby). n. 1861 (London: W. Tegg).
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o. 1873 (London: Routledge). p. 1878 (London: Bickers & Son) – illustrated with 12 illustrations in permanent photography from the Boydell Gallery. q. 1879 (London: Routledge). r. 1879 (London: Routledge) –with illustrations by Sir J Birket Foster and others.
s. 1880 (London: Routledge). t. 1882 (London: Bickers & Son). u. 1883 (London: Ward Lock). v. 1893 (London: Routledge) – stereotype reprint of 1880 edition. 2. J.R. Pitman, The School Shakspeare; or plays and scenes illustrated for the use of Schools, with glossarial notes, selected by the best annotators (London: C.Rice, 1822). Dramatic extracts from twenty-six plays and twelve of the sonnets.
3. Anon., Shaksperian Anthology comprising the choicest passages and entire scenes … with a biographical sketch (London: Sainsbury, 1830).
4. Anon., Gems from Shakespeare (London: R.Tyas, 1838).
5. T. Price, The Wisdom and Genius of Shakspeare; comprising moral philosophy, delineations of character, paintings of nature and passions, and miscellaneous pieces, (London: Scott Walker & Geary, 1838).
6. Michael Henry Rankin, The Philosophy of Shakspere (London: Whittaker & Co., 1841).
7. Frederick Watson, Religious and Moral Sentences culled from the works of Shakespeare (London: Calkin & Budd, 1843); second edition 1847.
8. Mary Cowden Clarke, Shakespeare Proverbs (London: Chapman & Hall, 1848).
9. C.J Walbran, A Dictionary of Shakspere Quotations: being a collection of maxims, proverbs and most remarkable passages in the plays and poems of Shakspere, arranged in alphabetical order (London: Simpkin, Marsahll & Co., 1849).
10. Henry Noel Humphreys, Sentiment and Similes of William Shakespeare. A classified selection of similes, definitions, descriptions and other remarkable passages in the plays and poems of Shakespeare (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1851).
11. Anon., Gems from Shakespeare (London: Clarke Beeton & Co., 1854).
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12. Anon., Shakespeare’s Household Words. A selection from the wise saws of the immortal bard. Illuminated by S. Stanesby (London: Griffith & Farran, 1859).
13. Anon., Pearls of Shakespeare ; A collection of the most Brilliant Passages found in his plays. Illustrated by Kenny Meadows (London: Cassell, Petter and Galpin, 1860). 1873 edition (London: Blackwood & Co.)
14. A.A. Morgan, The Mind of Shakespeare as Exhibited in his Works (London: Chapman & Hall, 1860)
15. L.C. Gent, Choice Thoughts from Shakspere (London; Whittaker & Co., 1861) and also 1862 and (Routledge) 1866. Re-issued as Shakspere Gems (London: G. Routledge, 1880). Published as ‘By the author of “The Book of Familiar Quotations”’
16. James Brown, Bible Truths with Shakespearean Parallels (London: Whittaker & Co, 1862).
17. W. Hoe, The Shakspere Treasury of subject quotations, synonymously indexed (London: Hodson & Son, 1862).
18. Anon., Cassell’s Shakespeare Tercentenary Pocket Almanack (also referred to in the British Library catalogue as Cassell’s Shakespeare Tercentenary Pocket Keepsake), 1864 (London: Cassell,Petter & Galpin, 1864).
19. R.L. Gibson, Shakespearean Gems, newly collected and arranged with a life of William Shakespeare (Halifax: W. Nicholson & Sons, 1865).
20. Anon., A Treasury of Thought from Shakespeare: the choice sayings of his principal characters analytically and alphabetically arranged (London & Glasgow:G. Griffin & Co., 1866).
21.Edmund Routledge, Quotations from Shakespeare . A Collection of Passages from the works of William Shakespeare (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1867).
22. H.F. Goodson, Shakespeare: his religious and moral sentiments. Gems gathered from his writings (London: Simpkin & Marshall, 1874)
23. E[dward] M[arston], Shakespeare’s Songs and Sonnets illustrated by John Gilbert (London: Sampson Low & Co. 1875); BL catalogue indicates a reprint of 1863 edition.
24. Anon., The Sweet Silvery Sayings of Shakespeare on the Softer Sex. Compiled by an Old Soldier (London: Henry S. King & Co., 1877)
25. F.T. Palgrave, Songs and Sonnets by William Shakespeare (London: Macmillan, 1879).
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26. Cecil Arnold, An index to Shakespearian thought: a collection of passages from the plays and poems of Shakespeare (London: Bickers & Son, 1880).
27. A. Gilman, Shakespeare’s Morals: suggestive selections, with brief collateral readings and scriptural references (London: J.F. Shaw & Co., 1880).
28. Mary A. Woods, Scenes from Shakespeare for use in schools (London: Macmillan, 1898). Dramatic extracts.
Shakespeare Birthday Books: 29. J.A.K. ed., The Birthday Register with Sentiments from Shakspere (London: Marcus Ward & Co., 1876).
30. G. Johnston, Cupid’s Birthday Book: one thousand love darts from Shakespeare gathered and arranged for every day in the year (Edinburgh & London: W. P. Nimmo, 1875).
31. M[ary] Dunbar, The Shakespeare Birthday Book (London: Hatchards, 1875?)
32. Anon., The Bard of Avon Birthday Book. Compiled from Shakespeare’s plays and poems (London: Routledge & Sons, 1880).
33. Anon.,The Shakespeare Gem Birthday Book (London: Ernest Nister,1880).
34. Anon.,The Shakespeare Birthday Book (The Stratford edition) (London: Frederick Warne & Co., 1882).
35. Anon., The Shakespeare Birthday Book (London: Marcus Ward & Co., 1883).
36. Anon., An Illustrated Shakspere Birthday Book (London: G. Routledge & Sons, 1883).
37. Anon., Birthday Chimes from Shakespeare. A text-book of choice extracts from the works of William Shakespeare for every day in the year (Edinburgh: W.P. Nimmo, Hay & Mitchell, 1886).
38. G. Garrett, Gems from Shakespeare. A book for registering the birthdays of ones friends…, (London: H.J. Dare, 1894).
39. E.W. Hanscomb, The Shakspere Birthday Book (London: Griffith, Farran & Co, 1892)
40. Anon., [The] Shakespeare Birthday [Text] Book (London: Ernest Nister, 1898).
Artefact anthologies:
41. Shakespearian Gems. Six illuminated designs, suitable for Christmas and New Year’s Greetings, or for presentatio, (London, 1878).
42. The Shakespeare Draught Board, 1864.
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APPENDIX 18. The Golden Treasury, 1861.
Shakespeare texts used in The Golden Treasury Page Poem Title Text Source 3 3 Time and Love I ‘When I have seen by Time’s Son. 64 fell hand defaced…’ 3 4 II ‘Since brass, nor stone, nor Son. 65 Earth, nor boundless sea…’ 5 6 A Madrigal ‘Crabbed Age and Youth…’ PP 12 5 7 ‘Under the greenwood tree…’ AYL 2.5.1-8, 35- 42 6 8 ‘It was a lover and his lass…’ AYL5.3.15-38 7 10 Absence ‘Being your slave what should Son.57 I do but tend…’ 8 11 ‘How like a winter hath my Son.97 absence been…’ 8 12 A Consolation ‘When in disgrace with fortune Son.29 and men’s eyes…’ 9 13 The Unchangeable ‘O never say that I was false of Son.109 Heart…’ 9 14 ‘To me fair friend you can Son.104 never be old…’ 12 18 To His Love ‘Shall I compare thee to a Son.18 summer’s day…?’ 13 19 To His Love ‘When in the chronicle of Son. 106 wasted time’ 13 20 Love’s Perjuries ‘On a day, alack the day!’ LLL 4.3.99-118* 15 23 True Love ‘Let me not to the marriage of Son. 116 true minds…’ 17 26 Carpe Diem ‘O mistress mine, where are TN 2.3.39-52 You roaming?...’ 17 27 Winter ‘When icicles hang by the wall LLL 5.2.897-912 …’ 18 28 ‘That time of year thou may’st Son.73 in me behold…’ 19 29 Remembrance ‘When to the sessions of sweet Son. 30 silent thought…’ 19 30 Revolutions ‘Like as the waves make Son. 60 towards the pebbled shore…’ 19 31 ‘Farewell! Thou art too dear for Son. 87 my possessing…’ 20 32 The Life Without ‘They that have power to hurt…’ Son. 94 Passion 23 36 Madrigal ‘Take, o take those lips away…’ MM 4.1.1-16 24 39 Blind Love ‘O me! what eyes hath love put Son. 148 in my head…’ 28 45 Fidele ‘Fear no more the heat o’the Cym 4.2.258-280 Sun…’
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29 46 A Sea Dirge ‘Full fathom five…’ Temp 1.2.397- 405 29 48 Post Mortem ‘If thou survive my well- Son.32 contented day…’ 30 49 The Triumph of ‘No longer mourn for me when Son.71 Death I am dead…’ 30 50 Madrigal ‘Tell me where is Fancy bred…’ MV 3.2.63-72 38 56 Soul and Body ‘Poor soul, the centre of my Son.146 sinful earth…’ 40 60 The World’s Way ‘Tired with all these, for restful Son.66 death I cry …’
* Palgrave appears to have used the text from Englands Helicon (1600) and not that in Love’s Labour’s Lost or The Passionate Pilgrim. Megan Nelson believed that Palgrave worked from early nineteenth-century reprints of some early modern anthologies including Englands Helicon. Note: The second edition of 1884 added 14 additional poems at the end of the volume including two songs from The Tempest ‘Where the bee sucks there suck I’ and Come unto these yellow sands.’ These were added under one number (289) and titled ‘The Fairy Life’ I and II. In subsequent editions these were intercalated into the text and separated under two numbers.
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APPENDIX 19. I. Nightingale Valley, 1860 Shakespeare texts used in Nightingale Valley Page Title Text Source 77 Song [from “As You ‘Under the greenwood tree …’ AYL 2.5.1-8, 35- Like It”] 42 95 Sonnet [Absence] ‘From you I have been absent Son.98 in the spring…’ 103 Song of Ariel [from ‘Come unto these yellow Temp. 1.2.377- “The Tempest”] sands…’ 389 107 Song of Ariel [from ‘Full fathom five thy father Temp.1.2.399- “The Tempest”] lies…’ 407
117 Sonnet [Love’s Slave] ‘Being your slave what should I Son. 57 do but tend…’ 138 [From “A Midsummer ‘Fairy. Over hill, over dale…’ MND 2.1.2-15 Night’s Dream” 150 Sonnet [Love’s ‘When in disgrace with fortune Son. 29 Consolation] and men’s eyes…’ 152 Lord Amiens’ Song in ‘Blow, blow thou winter AYL 2.7.175- the Forest of Arden wind…’ 194 [From “As You Like It”] 159 Sonnet [Absence and ‘So am I as the rich, whose Son. 52 Presence] blessed key…’ 198 Song of Ariel [From ‘Where the bee sucks, there Temp. 5.1.88- “The Tempest”] suck I…’ 96 217 Song. [At a Lady’s ‘Hark! hark! the lark at Cym. 2.3.19- Window.] From heaven’s gate sings…’ “Cymbeline.” 232 [Lullaby for Titania] ‘First Fairy. MND 2.2.9-30 From “A Midsummer You spotted snakes with double Night’s Dream” tongue…’ 250 [From “A midsummer ‘Puck. MND 5.2.1-20 Night’s Dream”.] Now the hungry lion roars…’
II. The Golden Pomp, 1895 Shakespeare texts used in The Golden Pomp [All the poems are numbered using roman numerals and where poems share a title they are given their number in Roman numerals and a further group number in Arabic numerals] Title Text Source No title ‘Hark! hark! the lark…’ Cym 2.3.19-25 Sweet-and-Twenty ‘O mistress mine…’ TN 2.3.38-43, 46- 51 It Was a Lover and his ‘It was a lover and his lass…’ AYL 5.3.15-38 Lass Time and Love 1. ‘When I have seen by time’s fell Son 64 hand defaced…’
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2. ‘Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, Son 65 nor boundless sea…’ When Daffodils Begin ‘When daffodils begin to peer…’ WT 4.3.1-4 to Peer Cuckoo ‘When daisies pied… WT 5.2.399-407 No title ‘The ousel cock so black of hue… MND 3.1.118- 121,123-126 The Blossom ‘On a day-alack the day…’ LLL 4.3.99-118 The Fairy Life 1. ‘Over hill, over dale…’ MND 2.1.2-15 2. ‘You spotted snakes, come not MND 2.2.9-30 near…’ 3. ‘Now the hungry lion roars…’ MND 5.2.1-20 4. ‘Come unto these yellow sands…’ Temp 1.2.377-389 5. ‘Where the bee sucks…’ Temp 5.1.88-94 Under the Greenwood ‘Under the greenwood tree…’ AYL 2.5.1-8, 35- Tree 42 Amiens’ Song ‘Blow, blow, thou winter wind…’ AYL 2.7.175-194 Youngling Love ‘Tell me, where is fancy bred…’ MV 3.2.63-72 Short Sunshine ‘Full many a glorious morning Son 33 have I seen…’
Beauty and Rhyme ‘When in the chronicle of wasted Son 106 time…’ No title ‘If thou survive my well-contented Son 32 day…’ No title ‘Not mine own fears nor the Son 107 prophetic soul…’ Silvia ‘Who is Silvia, what is she…’ TGV 4.2.38-52
[Poem no.2 under the ‘Shall I compare thee to a Son 18 title ‘A Comparison’ – summer’s day…’ paired with Spenser’s ‘Mark when she smiles with amiable cheer…’ Comfort 1. ‘When in disgrace with fortune and Son 29 men’s eyes…’ 2. ‘When to the sessions of sweet Son 30 silent thought…’ 3. ‘Thy bosom is endeared with all Son 31 hearts…’ Love’s Casuistry 1. ‘If love make me forsworn…’ LLL 4.2.106-119 2. ‘Did not the heavenly rhetoric of LLL 4.3.57-70 thine eye…’ Orpheus ‘Orpheus with his lute…’ H8 3.1.3-14 In Tears her Triumph ‘So sweet a kiss the golden sun…’ LLL 4.3.24-39 A Lover’s Dirge ‘Come away, come away death…’ TN 2.4.50-65
Constancy ‘O never say that I was false of Son 109 heart…’
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Love Unalterable ‘Let me not to the marriage of true Son 116 minds…’ The Full Love is ‘My love is strengthened, though Son 102 Hushed more weak in seeming…’ Absence 1. ‘How like a winter hath my Son 97 absence been…’ 2. ‘From you I have been absent in Son 98 the spring…’ 3. ‘The forward violet thus did I Son 99 chide…’ No title ‘Sweet love renew thy force. Be it Son 56 not said…’ No title ‘Being your slave, what should I Son 57 do but tend…’ Bridal Song ‘Roses their sharp spines being TNK 1.1.1-24 gone…’ Ophelia Sings ‘How should I your true love Ham 4.5.23- know…’ 26,29,32,35,37-39 Sigh No More Ladies ‘Sigh no more, ladies…’ MA 2.3.61-76 Take, O Take Those ‘Take, O take those lips away…’ MM 4.1.1-6 Lips Away The Recall of Love ‘Farewell, thou art too dear for my Son 87 possessing…’ Forget ‘No longer mourn for me when I Son 71 am dead…’ No title ‘Then hate me when thou wilt, if Son 90 ever, now…’ Fidele ‘Fear no more the heat o’th’sun… Cym 4.2.258-280
Her Autumn 1. ‘When I do count the clock that Son 12 tells the time…’ 2. ‘To me, fair friend, you never can Son 104 be old…’ Embers ‘That time of year thou mayst in Son 73 me behold… When that I was and a ‘When that I was and a tiny little TN 5.1.385-404 Tiny Little Boy boy…’ The Merry Heart ‘Jog on, jog on…’ WT 4.3.123-126 Anacreontic ‘Come thou monarch of the vine AC 2.7.110-115 …’ A Sea Dirge ‘Full fathom five thy father lies…’ Temp 1.2.377-389 Urns and Odours Bring ‘Urns and odours bring away…’ TNK 1.5.1-10 Away The Phoenix and the ‘Let the bird of loudest lay…’ P&T Turtle Winter ‘When icicles hang by the wall…’ LLL 5.2.887-902
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APPENDIX 20. Specimens of the Early English Poets.
Shakespeare texts used in Specimens of the Early English Poets, 1790.
Title Text Source ‘Song’ Blow, blow, thou winter wind…’ AYL 2.7.175- 194 ‘Sonnet’ On a day (alack the day)… LLL 4.3. 99-118 ‘Spring Song’ ‘When daisies pied…’ LLL 5.2.879- 896 ‘Winter Song’ ‘When icicles hang by the wall…’ LLL 5.2.896- 912 ‘Song of Fairies’ ‘Now the hungry lion roars…’ MND 5.2.1-20 ‘Song’ ‘Sigh no more ladies…’ MA 2.3.61-76 ‘A Song on Fancy’ ‘Tell me, where is fancy bred…’ MV 3.2.63-72 ‘Ariel’s Song’ ‘Where the bee sucks…’ Temp.5.1.88-96 ‘Song’ ‘Come away death…’ TN 2.4.50-65 ‘Song’ ‘Who is Silvia…’ TGV 4.2.38-52 ‘Dirge’ ‘Fear no more the heat ‘o’ th’ Cym 4.2.258 sun…’ ‘The Force of Love’ ‘Being your slave, what should I do Son 57 but tend…’ ‘Wholesome Counsel’ ‘When as thine hath chose the PP18 dame…’ ‘Sympathizing Love’ ‘As it fell upon a day…’ PP20
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APPENDIX 21. The Beauties of the British Poets.
Shakespeare extracts used in The Beauties of the British Poets, 1828.
Title Text Source ‘Solitude’ Are not these woods /More AYL 2.1.3-17 free from peril that the envious court…’ ‘Music’ ‘I am never merry when I MV 5.1.70-88 hear sweet music…’ [separated by horizontal TN 1.1.1-7 line ] ‘If music be the food of love…’ ‘Human Life’ ‘Reason thus with life…’ MM 3.1.6-41 [separated by space] AYL 2.7.139-166 ‘All the world’s a stage…’ ‘Mercy’ ‘The quality of mercy…’ MV 4.1.181-194 ‘Moonlight’ ‘How sweet the MV 5.1.54-65 moonlight…’ ‘Henry IV and Richard ‘Then, as I said the duke, R2 5.2.7-36 II’ Great Bolingbroke…’ NB Only extract to be printed with SPs
‘Wolsey’ ‘Nay then farewell…’ H8 3.2.223-258 H8 3.2.366-373 H8 3.2.429-458 ‘Death’ ‘To be or not to be…’ Ham 3.1.58-90 ‘Human Life’ ‘Tomorrow and Mac 5.5.18-27 tomorrow…’ [separared by horizontal Mac 5.3.25-30 line] ‘I have lived long enough…’
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APPENDIX 22. A Thousand and One Gems of English Poetry
Shakespeare texts in A Thousand and One Gems of English Poetry, 1867.
Title Text Source Text ‘Advice of Polonius to his ‘Give thy thoughts no Ham. 1.3.59-81 Son On setting Forth on tongue…’ his travels’ ‘Hamlet’s Soliloquy on ‘To be or not to be…’ Ham. 3.1.58-90 Life and Death ‘Hamlet’s Reproaches to ‘Look here upon this picture…’ Ham. 3.4.52-79 his Mother’ ‘Hamlet’s Soliloquy on ‘ O that this too, too solid Ham. 1.2.129-156 his Mother’s Marriage’ flesh…’ ‘Hamlet’s Address to his ‘Angels and ministers of Ham. 1.4.20-37 Father’s Ghost’ grace…’ ‘Hamlet’s Esteem for ‘Nay, do not think I flatter…’ Ham. 3.2.54-72 Horatio…’ ‘Secret Love’ ‘She never told her love…’ TN 2.4.110-115 ‘Song’ ‘Come away death…’ TN 2.4.50-65 ‘A Faithful Lover’ ‘His words are bonds…’ TGV. 2.7.75-78 ‘Conscience’ ‘O it is monstrous! Temp. 3.3.95-99 Monstrous!...’ ‘Music’ ‘If music be the food of love…’ TN 1.1.1-7 ‘Human Nature’ ‘These our actors…’ Temp. 4.1.149-158 ‘Cassius upon Caesar’ ‘Why, man, he doth bestride the JC 1.2.136-156 narrow world…’ ‘Mark Antony’s Oration ‘Friends, Romans…’ JC 3.2.74-108,119- over the Body of Caesar’ 138,167-195, 205- 225. ‘The Quarrel of Brutus ‘Come, Antony, and young JC 4.2.147-177 and Cassius’ Octavius come…’ SPs used. ‘Antony’s Description of ‘ This was the noblest JC 5.5.67-74 Brutus’ Roman…’ ‘Macbeth’s mental ‘If it were done …’ Mac. 1.7.1-47 Struggle before the SPs used Murder of Duncan’ ‘Life’ ‘To-morrow, and to-morrow…’ Mac. 5.5.18-27 ‘The Repose of the ‘Duncan is in his grave…’ Mac. 3.2.24-28 Grave’ ‘The Visionary Dagger’ ‘Is this a dagger that I see Mac. 2.1.33-49 before me…’ ‘Remorse’ ‘Whence is that knocking…’ Mac. 2.1.55-61 ‘Diseases of the Mind ‘Can’st thou not minister to a Mac. 5.3.42.47 Incurable’ mind diseas’d…’ ‘Macbeth to Banquo’s ‘What man dare, I dare…’ Mac. 3.4.98-107 Ghost’ ‘Despised Old Age’ ‘I have lived long enough…’ Mac 5.3.24-30
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‘Cordelia’s Emotion on ‘Patience and sorrow strove…’ KL 4.3.16-22 Hearing of her Sisters’ Cruelty’ ‘Dover Cliff’ ‘How fearful/And dizzy ‘tis…’ KL 4.6.11-24 ‘King Lear in the ‘Blow wind, and crack your KL 3.2.1-, 14-24 Tempest’ cheeks…’ ‘Lear to Cordelia when ‘Come, let’s away to prison…’ KL 5.3.8-19 taken Prisoners’ ‘Edgar’s Defiance of ‘Draw thy sword…’ Lear 5.3.124-139 Edmund’ ‘The Storm’ ‘Poor, naked wretches, Lear 3.4.28-36 wheresoe’er you are…’ ‘Character of Coriolanus’ ‘His nature is too noble for the Cor. 3.1.255-259 world…’ ‘Coriolanus’s Contempt ‘You common cry of curs…’ Cor. 3.3.124-139 for the Mob’ and 1.1.166-182 [presented as one ‘poem’] ‘Cleopatra in the Cydnus’ ‘The barge she sat in … AC 2.2.198-212, 213-224 ‘Antony’s Despondency’ ‘O sun, thy uprise shall I see no AC 4.13.18-29 more…’ ‘Cleopatra’s Speech on ‘Give me my robe, put on my AC 5.2.275-287 applying the Serpent to crown…’ her Breast’ ‘The Fool in the Forest’ ‘A fool, a fool – I met a fool in AYL 2.7.12-34 the forest…’ ‘The Seven Ages of Man’ ‘All the world’s a stage…’ AYL 2.7.139-166 ‘The Uses of Adversity’ ‘Now, my co-mates and AYL 2.1.1-17 brothers in exile…’ ‘Jaques and the Wounded ‘Today, my Lord of Amiens AYL 2.1.29-57 Deer’ and myself…’ [SPs] ‘Ingratitude’ ‘Blow, blow thou winter AYL 2.7.175-194 wind…’ ‘Under the Greenwood ‘Under the greenwood tree…’ AYL 2.5. 1-8 and Tree’ 35-42 ‘Shylock’s Remonstrance ‘Signior Antonio, many a time MV 1.3.105-127 with Antonio’ and oft…’ ‘Cheerfulness’ ‘Let me play the fool…’ MV 1.1.79-86 ‘The Deceit of ‘The world is still deceiv’d with MV 3.2.74-101 Appearances’ ornament…’ ‘Mercy’ ‘The quality of mercy…’ MV 4.1.181-199 ‘Celestial Music’ ‘How sweet the moonlight sits MV 5.1.54-68 upon this bank…’ ‘The Love of Music a ‘The man that hath no music in MV 5.1. 83-88 Test of Character’ himself…’ ‘Queen Elizabeth’ ‘ I saw, but thou could’st not…’ MND 2.1.155-164 ‘The Sorrows of True ‘Ah me! For aught that ever I MND 1.1.132-134 Love’ could read…’
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‘The Power of ‘ The poet’s eye, in a fine MND 5.1.12-17 Imagination’ frenzy rolling…’ ‘Feminine Friendship’ ‘ O, and is all forgot…’ MND 3.2.202-220 ‘Beatrice’ ‘Disdain and scorn ride MA 3.1.51-56 sparkling in her eyes…’ ‘Sigh No More Ladies’ ‘Sigh no more, ladies…’ MA 2.3.61-76 ‘Innocence’ ‘I have mark’d/ A thousand MA 4.1.160-166 blushing apparitions start…’ ‘A Woman’s Tongue’ ‘Think you a little din can daunt TS 1.2.198-208 mine ears…’ ‘The Mind Alone ‘For ‘tis the mind that makes TS 4.3.170-178 Valuable’ the body rich…’ ‘A Wife’s Duty’ ‘Fie, fie! unknittest that TS 5.2.141-173 threatening unkind brow…’ ‘Mirthfulness’ ‘A merrier man/ within the limit LLL 2.1.66-76 of becoming mirth…’ ‘Woman’s Eyes’ ‘From woman’s eyes this LLL 4.3.326-329 doctrine I derive…’ ‘The Power of Love’ ‘But love first learned in a LLL 4.3.303-325 lady’s eyes…’ ‘Winter’ ‘When icicles hang by the LLL 5.2.887-902 wall…’ ‘Serenade to Sylvia’ ‘Who is Sylvia? What is she…’ TGV 4.1.38-52 ‘The Abuse of Power’ ‘O, it is excellent/To have a MM 2.2.109-111 giant’s strength…’ ‘The Abuse of Authority’ ‘Could great men thunder…’ MM 2.2.112-125 ‘The Fear of Death’ ‘Ay, but to die, and go we know MM 3.1.118-132 not where…’ ‘Slander’ ‘No, ‘tis slander;/ Whose edge Cym 3.4.33-39 is sharper than the sword…’ ‘Hark! Hark! The Lark’ ‘Hark! hark! the lark…’ Cym 2.3.19-25 [Cloten’s Song] ‘Othello’s Account of his ‘Most potent, grave and Oth 1.3.76-94 and Courtship of Desdemona’ reverend signiors…’ 127-168 ‘Othello’s Soliloquy ‘It is the cause, it is the cause, Oth 5.2.1-14 before Murdering his my soul…’ Wife’ Desdemona discovered asleep; enter Othello ‘Jealousy’ ‘Trifles light as air…’ Oth 3.3.326-328 ‘Scene between Othello Desdemona.’Alas the heavy Oth 4.1.44-66 and Desdemona’ day!...’ SPs ‘Emilia’s Indignation ‘I will be hang’d, if some Oth 4.2.133-137 Against Slanderers’ eternal villain…’ and 143-148 ‘Reputation’ ‘Good name, in man and Oth 3.3.160-166 woman…’ ‘Othello’s Despair’ ‘O, now for ever/ Farewell Oth 3.3.353-362 tranquil mind!...’
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‘Othello’s Dying Speech’ ‘Soft you, a word or two before Oth 5.2.347-365 you go…’ SDs ‘Queen Mab’ ‘O, then I see queen Mab hath RJ 1.4.53 and 55- been with you…’ 991 and 96-103 ‘A Beautiful Woman’ ‘O, she doth teach the torches to RJ 1.5.43-46 burn bright…’ ‘The Garden Scene’ ‘He jests at scars that never felt RJ 2.1.43-67 a wound…’ SPs ‘What’s in a Name’ ‘ ‘Tis but thy name that is mine RJ 2.1.43-67 enemy…’ ‘The Winning of Juliet’ ‘Thou know’st the mask of RJ 2.1.127-177 night is on my face…’ SPs ‘Juliet’s Impatience’ ‘Come night! Come Romeo! RJ 3.2.17-25 Come thou day in night…’ ‘Reluctance to Part’ ‘Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet RJ 3.5.1-35 near day…’ SPs ‘Dreams’ ‘If I may trust the flattering eye RJ 5.1.1-11 of sleep…’ ‘The Apothecary’ ‘I do remember an RJ 5.1.37-52 apothecary…’ ‘The Death of Romeo’ ‘How oft when men are at the RJ 5.3.88-120 point of death…’ SDs ‘Constance’s reproaches ‘O Lymoges! O Austria thou KJ 3.1.40-55 to the Archduke of dost shame…’ Austria’ ‘A Complete Lady’ ‘If lusty love should go in quest KJ 2.1.427-432 of beauty…’ ‘Perfection Needs No ‘To gild refined gold, to paint KJ 4.2.11-16 Addition’ the lily…’ ‘Despondency’ ‘There’s nothing in this world KJ 3.4.107-109 can make me joy…’ ‘The Curses of Royalty’ ‘It is the curse of kings to be KJ 4.2.209-215 and attended…’ 220-230 and 232- 237. ‘England Invincible’ ‘This England never did, nor KJ 5.7.112-118 never shall…’ ‘The Tragical Fate of ‘Of comfort, no man speak…’ R2 3.2.140-174 Kings’ ‘Richard’s Humility’ ‘What must the king do now?...’ R2 3.3.142-158 ‘Bolingbroke’s Entry into ‘Then, as I said, the duke, great R2 5.2.7-21 and 23- London’ Bolingbroke…’ 36 ‘England’ ‘This royal throne of kings…’ R2 2.1.40-50 ‘Hotspur’s Description of ‘But, I remember when the fight 1H4 1.3.29-63 a Fop’ was done…’ ‘Lady Percy’s Speech to ‘O, my good lord, why are you 1H4 2.4.36-64 her Husband’ thus alone?...’ ‘King Henry IV to Prince ‘Had I so lavish of my presence 1H4 3.3.39-84 Henry’ been…’
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‘Prince Henry’s Defence ‘God forgive them, that have so 1H4 3.3.130-159 of Himself’ much swayed…’ ‘Young Harry’ ‘I saw young Harry – with his 1H4 4.1.105-111 beaver on…’ ‘Prince Henry’s Speech ‘Fare thee well, great heart…’ 1H4 5.4.86-100 on the Death of Hotspur’ ‘Henry’s Soliloquy on ‘How many thousand of my 2H4 3.1.4-31 Sleep’ poorest subjects…’ ‘The Character of King ‘He is gracious if he be 2H4 4.3.30-40 Henry V by his Father’ observ’d;…’ ‘Fortune’ ‘Will fortune never come with 2H4 4.3.103-108 both hands full…’ ‘Prince Henry Rebuked ‘Come hither to me, Harry…’ 2H4 4.3.218-273 by his Father’ SPs ‘King Henry’s Address to ‘Once more unto the breach, H5 3.1.1-21 his Soldiers’ dear friends…’ ‘Night in the Camp’ ‘From camp to camp…’ H5 4.0.4-45 ‘Martial Spirit of ‘Now all the youth of England H5 2.0. 1-11 England’ are on fire…’ ‘Accomplishments of ‘Hear him but reason in H5 1.1.39-51 King Henry V’ divinity…’ ‘King Henry’s Speech ‘He that outlives this day…’ H5 4.3.41-67 before The Battle of Agincourt’ ‘A Good Conscience’ ‘What stronger breastplate than 2H6 3.2.232-235 a heart untainted…’ ‘The King’s Envy of a ‘O God! methinks it were a 3H6 2.5.21-34 and Shepherd’s Life’ happy life…’ 37-41 ‘Richard Duke of ‘Why, I can smile and murder 3H6 3.3.182-194 Gloster’s Description of while I smile…’ Himself’ ‘Dying Words of ‘These eyes that now are 3H6 5.2.16-28 Warwick the Kingmaker’ dimm’d with death’s black veil…’ ‘Henry VI on his own ‘I have not stopp’ed mine ears 3H6 4.10.7-14 Lenity’ to their demands…’ ‘Suffolk’s Hatred of his ‘A plague upon them! 2H6 3.2.313-332 Enemies’ wherefore should I curse them…’ ‘The Duke of Gloster on ‘Now is the winter of our R3 1.1.1-31 his Deformity’ discontent…’ ‘Queen Margaret’s ‘The worm of conscience still R3 1.3.219-225 Execrations on Gloster’ be-gnaw thy soul!...’ ‘The Murder of the ‘The tyrannous and bloody act R3 4.3.1-22 Young Princes in the is done…’ Tower’ ‘Richmond’s Address to ‘Fellows in arms, and my most R3 5.2.1-16 his Army before The loving friends…’ Battle of Bosworth’
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‘Cardinal Wolsey on the ‘Farewell, a long farewell to all H8 3.2.352-373 Vicissitudes of Life’ my greatness…’ ‘Wolsey to Cromwell’ ‘Thus far hear me, Cromwell…’ H8 3.2.432-458 ‘Cardinal Wolsey’s ‘At last, with easy roads, he H8 4.2.17-30 Death’ came to Leicester…’ ‘Take, O Take Those Lips ‘Take, o take those lips MM 4.1. 1-6 and Away’ away…’ the second verse from Fletcher’s Rollo ‘Love and Lust’ ‘Love comforteth like sunshine VA 799-804 after rain…’ ‘Sunrise’ ‘Lo! here the gentle lark weary VA 853-858 of rest…’ ‘Lucretia Sleeping’ ‘Her lily hand her rosy cheek Luc 386-390 and lies under…’ 393-410 ‘What Win I If I Gain?’ ‘What win I if I gain the thing I Luc 211-217 seek…’ ‘Venus With the Dead ‘She looked upon his lips, and VA 1123-1194 Body of Adonis’ they are pale…’ ‘Sonnet’ ‘Full many a glorious morning Son 33 have I seen…’ ‘Sonnet’ ‘Not marble, not (sic) the gilded Son 55 monuments…’ ‘Sonnet’ ‘To me fair friend you never Son 104 can be old…’ ‘Sonnet’ ‘When to the sessions of sweet Son. 30 silent thought…’
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APPENDIX 23. Gleanings from the English Poets, Chaucer to Tennyson.
Shakespeare extracts in Gleanings from the English Poets, Chaucer to Tennyson, 1862.
Title Text Source Murder of King Duncan ‘Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is Mac. 2.1.31- ready … That summons thee to heaven 64 or to hell.’ Love Scene ‘He jests at scars that never felt a RJ.2.1.43-67 wound … That I might touch that cheek.’ Othello relates his ‘Most potent, grave, and reverend Oth.1.3.76-94, courtship to the Senate signiors … And I loved her that did 127-167 pity them.’ End of Earthly Glories ‘Our revels now are ended … Is Temp.4.1.148- rounded with a sleep.’ 158 Life and Death ‘To be or not to be …. And lose the Ham.3.1.58- name of action’. 90 Fear of Death ‘Ay, but to die … To what we fear of MM 3.1.118- death.’ 132 The Deceit of ‘The world is still deceived with MV 3.2.74- Appearances ornament … joy be the consequence. 107 Mercy The quality of mercy … The deeds of MV 4.1.181- mercy.’ 199 The World compared to a ‘All the world’s a stage … sans AYL 2.7.139- Stage everything.’ 166
Cardinal Wolsey’s ‘ Cromwell, I did not think to shed a H8 3.2.429- Speech to Cromwell tear … Have left me naked to mine 458 enemies.’ Music ‘How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon MV 5.1.54-88 this bank … Let no such man be trusted.’ Imagination ‘Lovers and madmen … A local MND 5.1.4-17 habitation and a name.’
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APPENDIX 24. Chambers Cyclopedia of English Literature
Shakespeare texts in Chambers Cyclopedia of English Literature, 1843-4.
A. In the section devoted to Poets from 1558 to 1649. Title Text Source The Horse of Adonis ‘Look when a painter would surpass the life VA 289-306 … Fanning the hairs who wavelike feathered wings.’ Venus’ Prophecy after ‘Since thou art dead, lo! here I prophesy… VA 1135 -1164 the Death of Adonis They that love best, their love shall not enjoy.’ Selections from Sonnets: Sonnets 29, Shakespeare’s Sonnets (‘When in disgrace with fortune and men’s 110,111,30, eyes …’) 54,71,90, (‘Alas, ‘tis true, I have gone here and 98,102,116 there…’) (O for my sake do thou with future chide…’) (‘When to the sessions of sweet silent thought …’) (‘O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem…’) (‘No longer mourn for me when I am dead…’) (‘Then hate me if thou wilt, if ever, now…’), (‘From you I have been absent in the spring…’) (‘My love is strengthen’d, though more weak in seeming…’) (‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds…’) Selections from ‘[from ‘As You Like It’] ‘Blow, blow thou AYL 2.7.175-194 Shakespeare’s Songs winter wind…’ ‘[At the end of ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’] LLL 5.2.897-912 ‘When icicles hang by the wall…’ [In ‘Much Ado About Nothing’] ‘Sigh no MA 2.3.61-76 more ladies…’
[In ‘Cymbeline’] ‘Fear no more the heat o’ Cym 4.2.258-280 th’ sun …’ [From ‘As You Like It’] ‘Under the AYL 2.5.1-8,35- greenwood tree…’ 42 NB. Sonnet 73 is quoted in full in the headnote on Shakespeare where it is read biographically ‘a feeling of premature age seems to have crept up on Shakespeare’ (p.106) and the first two lines of sonnet 55 is also quoted here.
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B. In the section devoted to dramatists 1558 to 1649 Murder of King ‘[Macbeth prompted by ambition and Mac 2.1.31-64 Duncan pushed on by his savage wife, resolves and to murder the king, then his guest, and 2.2.1-72 seize the crown] MACBETH and a Servant “Go bid thy mistress… Wake Duncan with this knocking.Ay would’st thou could” ’ Love Scene by Night in ‘Romeo. He jests at scars that never felt RJ 2.1.43 -234 a Garden a wound … His help to crave and my dear hap to tell.’ Description of a ‘Lor. The moon shines bright tonight MV 5.1.1-22, Moonlight Night, with … Slander her love, and he forgave it 54-88 fine Music her.’ ‘How sweet the moonlight sits upon this bank… Let no such man be trusted.’ Ghost Scene in Hamlet ‘Hamlet The air bites shrewdly … Ham 1.4 Mar. Nay let’s follow him.’ Mark Antony over ‘Ant. Friends, romans, countrymen, JC 3.2.74-201 Ceasar’s Body lend me your ears…. Let not a traitor live’. Queen Mab ‘O then, I see queen Mab hath been R&J 1.4.53, with you … Which once untangled, 55-91 much misfortune bodes.’ End of All Earthly ‘Our revels now are ended … Is Temp 4.1.148- Glories rounded with a sleep.’ 158 Life and Death ‘To be or not to be …. And lose the Ham 3.1.58-90 Weighed name of action.’ Fear of Death ‘Ay but to die … To what we fear of MM 3.1.118- death.’ 132 Description of ‘There is a willow grows aslant the Ham 4.7.138- Ophelia’s Drowning brook … To muddy death.’ 155 Perseverance ‘Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his TC 3.3.139-168 back … To envious and calumniating Time.’ Deceit of Ornament or ‘The world is still deceiv’d with MV 3.2.74-107 Appearance ornament, … joy be the consequence.’ Mercy ‘The quality of mercy … deeds of MV 4.1.181- mercy.’ 199 Solitude preferred to a ‘Now my co-mates and brothers in AYL 2.1.1-20 Court Life, and the exile … so sweet a style.’ Advantages of Adversity The World Compared ‘Thou seest we are not all alone AYL 2.7.136- to a Stage unhappy … sans everything.’ 166 Description of a Night ‘From camp to camp through the foul H5 Chor. 4 4- in a Camp womb of night … Thawing cold fear.’ 45
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The Blessings of a ‘O God! methinks it were a happy life 3H6 2.5.21-54 Shepherd’s Life … When care, mistrust and treason wait on him.’
The Vicissitudes of Life ‘So farewell to the little good you bear H8 3.2.351-373 me … Never to hope again.’
Falstaff’s Cowardice [Falstaff who is represented as a 1H4 2.4.113 - and Boasting monster of fat, a sensualist and a 286 coward … the following scene takes place afterwards in their favourite London haunt, the Boar’s Head Tavern in Eastcheap] Poins Welcome Jack … Hal, and thou lov’st me.’ Falstaff arrested by his ‘Ch. Justice What’s the matter … 2H4 2.1.63- hostess, Dame Quickly hook on, hook on.’ 164
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APPENDIX 25. A Paradise of English Poetry
Shakespeare extracts in A Paradise of English Poetry, 1893. All extracts attributed at the end to ‘Shakespeare’ - no source text given. Only the Shakespeare epigraphs are noted here. Volume I. Section 1. ‘Love’. Epigraph: ‘O how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, And by and by a cloud takes all away’ (TGV. 1.2.84-87) Title Text Source The Potency of ‘Other slow arts entirely keep the LLL 4.3.300-330 Love brain…’ Song ‘O mistress mine…’ TN 2.3.38-43, 46- 51 Silvia ‘Who is Silvia? What is she …’ TGV. 4.2.38-52 Aubade* I ‘Hark! hark the lark …’ Cym 2.3.19-25 Song ‘Take, O take those lips away…’ MM 4.1.1-6 The Course of True ‘The current that with gentle murmur TGV 2.7.25-38 Love glides…’ * Under this one title are printed four separate ‘poems’ from Shakespeare, Davenant, Heywood and Drummond of Hawthorden numbering them I to IV. Section 2. ‘Home Affections and Friendship’ Childish ‘We were […]/Two lads, that thought there WT 1.2. 63- Friendship I was no more behind…’ 65 ‘Is all the counsel that we two have shared…’ MND II 3.2.199-215 ‘We still have slept together/Rose at an AYL 1.3.71- instant…’ 75 Manly Friendship ‘Since my dear soul was mistress of her Ham 3.2.61- choice…’ 72 Song ‘Blow, blow thou winter wind …’ AYL 2.7.175-194 Section 3. ‘Man’ Epigraph: ‘Man, proud man Most ignorant of what he’s most assured, His glassy essence.’ (sic) (MM 2.2.120, 122-3)
Sure he that made me with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not, That capability and god-like reason To fust in us unused.’ (Ham Q2. 4.4.27-30)
Perseverance in ‘Time hath, my lord a wallet TC 3.3.139-173 Honour Necessary at his back…’ The Uses of Ill ‘The ample proposition of that TC 1.3.2-33 Success hope makes
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On Degree ‘The heavens themselves TC 1.3.85-124 Imagination I ‘Lovers and madmen MND 5.1.4-22 II ‘It so falls out/ That what we MA 4.1.219-232 have we prize not…’ III ‘Gaunt: All places that the eye R2 [1597 Q] 257-292. of heaven visits…’ SPs. After seeing a ‘Our revels now are ended…’ Temp 4.1.148-158 Masque Time’s Glory ‘Time’s glory Luc 939-959 Forlorn Hope ‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow…’ Mac 5.5.18-27 Section 4. ‘Patriotism’ Epigraph: ‘O England, model to thy inward greatness Like little body with a mighty heart! (H5 2.0.15-16)
This royal throne of kings, this sceptr’d isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi paradise; This fortress, built by nature for herself, Against infection and the hand of war; This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house Against the envy of less happier lands; This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England. England, bound in with the triumphant sea, Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege Of watery Neptune. (R2 2.1.40-50, 61-63)
This England never did nor ever shall Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror. Come the three corners of the world in arms And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue If England to itself do rest but true. (KJ 5.7.112-118) Agincourt ‘Now entertain conjecture of a H5 4.0. 1-53 time…’ King Henry’s Speech ‘What’s he that wishes so? …’ H5 4.3.18-67 before Agincourt Kingship I. Richard ‘For heaven’s sake let us sit on R2 3.2.151-173 II the ground …’ II. Henry ‘How many thousand of my 2H4 3.1.4-31 IV poorest subjects…’ III. Henry ‘O hard condition/ Twin born H5 4.1.230-281 V with greatness…’ IV. Henry ‘This battle fares like to the 3H 6 2.5.1-54 VI morning’s war …’ Section 5. ‘Art’ Epigraph: [Keats’ ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever…’]
‘Spite of cormorant devouring Time 390
The endeavour of this present breath may buy The honour which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge.’ (LLL 1.1.4-6) The Power of Music ‘Orpheus with his lute…’ H8 3.1.3-14 I ‘Lorenzo: How sweet the MV 5.1.54-88 II moonlight sleeps…’ SP. Note: also included in this section are Jonson’s ‘To the memory of my beloved Master William Shakspeare and what he has left us’ and Milton’s ‘An epitaph on the Admirable Dramatic Poet W. Shakspeare’. Note: Beeching attributes ‘Orpheus with his lute’ to Fletcher. Volume II Section 1. ‘Romance’ Fairy Songs I ‘Where the bee sucks…’ Temp 5.1.88-94 II ‘Come unto these yellow Temp 1.2.376-387 sands…’ III ‘Over hill, over dale…’ MND 2.1.2-5 IV ‘You spotted snakes…’ MND 2.2.9-19 Queen Mab ‘O then I see Queen Mab hath RJ 53, 55-91 been with you…’ Section 2. ‘Nature’ Spring ‘When daffodils begin to WT 4.3.1-4 peer…’ ‘Under the greenwood tree…’ AYL 2.5. 1-8, 35-42 Section 3. ‘Pastorals’ On a Day ‘On a day (alack the day)…’ LLL 4.3.99-118; PP A Masque ‘Enter IRIS/ Iris. Ceres most Temp 5.1.60 -138 bounteous lady…’ SPs At a Sheep-Shearing ‘Per. Give me those flowers WT 4.4.73-155 there…’ SPs Section 4. ‘Death’ Epigraph: [Spenser ‘Death with most grim and grisly visage seen…’]
‘men must endure Their going hence even as their coming hither.’ (Lear 5.2.9-10) Fear of Death ‘Cowards die many times JC 2.2.32-37 before their death…’ * ‘Ay, but to die and go we MM 3.1.118-132 know not where…’ **Dirges I ‘Full fathom five…’ Temp 1.2. 399-407 ** Also extracts from John Webster ‘Call for the robin redbreast…’, Beaumont & Fletcher, Browne and Chatterton. Section 5. ‘Religion’ Epigraph: ‘[ ]Every man has business and desire, Such as it is; and for mine own poor part, Look you, I’ll go pray. (Ham 1.5.134-16)
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APPENDIX 26. Shakespeare texts in The Shakespeare Anthology, 1899. Title Text Source Ariel’s Song ‘Full fathom five…’ Temp. 1.2.399-407 The Spring’s Song ‘When daisies pied…’ LLL 5.2.399- 407 The Winter’s Song ‘When icicles hang by the wall…’ LLL 5.2.887- 902 ‘Tell me, where is Fancy bred?...’ MV 3.2.63- 72 ‘Where the bee sucks…’ Temp.5.1.88- 96 ‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds…’ Son. 116 ‘Betwixt mine Eye and Heart a league is Son. 47 took…’ The Three Caskets [The Merchant of Venice] In each case there are sub headings ‘The Gold Casket’, ‘The Silver Casket’, ‘The Lead Casket’ and under these ‘The Inscription Outside’ and ‘The Scroll Inside’ The Gold Casket ‘Who chooseth me shall gain what many MV 2.7.5 men desire’ ‘All that glisters is not gold /Often have you 2.7.65-73 heard that told/… Fare you well your suit is cold!’
The Silver Casket ‘Who chooseth me, shall get as much as he MV 2.7.7 deserves’ ‘The fire seven times tried this! … 2.9.62-71 So begone! You are sped!’
The Lead Casket ‘Who chooseth me, must give and hazard all MV 2.7.9 he hath’ ‘You that choose not by the view … 3.2.131-138 And claim her with a loving kiss!’
‘GUIDERIUS. Fear no more the heat o’ th’ Cym. 4.2.258- sun … 280 BOTH. Quiet consummation have; Renowned by thy grave!’ NB.Printed with all SPs.
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‘My love is strengthened, though more Son. 102 weak in seeing… ‘The forward violet thus did I chide…’ Son.99 ‘Hark! Hark! the lark…’ Cym. 2.3.19- 25 ‘How should I your true love know… Ham.4.5.23- With[out] true love showers.’ 26,29- NB. All interjecting speeches removed. 32,35,37-39
‘Jog on! Jog on the footpath way … Your WT 4.3.123- sad tires in a mile a!’ 126 ‘Who is Silvia? What is she, … to her let us TGV4.2.38-52 garlands bring!’ The Fairies Song ‘You spotted snakes with double tongue..’ MND 2.3.9- NB. SPs for ‘First Fairy’ and ‘Second Fairy’ 30 ‘Sigh no more, ladies! Sigh no more! … MA 2.3.61-76 ‘That time of year thou mayst in me Son.73 behold…’ ‘Not marble nor the gilded monument…’ Son. 55 ‘Come unto these yellow sands…’ Temp. 1.2.377-389 ‘O, Mistress mine, where are you AYL 2.3.39- roaming?…’ 52 ‘Under the greenwood tree…’ AYL 2.5.1- 8,35-42 ‘Orpheus with his lute…’ H8 3.1.3-14 ‘Blow, blow thou winter wind…’ AYL 2.7.175- 194 ‘Come away, come away death…’ TN 2.4.50-65 ‘Take, O, take those lips away’ MM 4.1.1-6
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APPENDIX 27. Poets’ Corner Shakespeare extracts in Poets’ Corner, 1868. Title Text Source From “Two Gentlemen ‘Who is Silvia…’ TGV 4.2.38-52 of Verona” SONG From “Love’s Labour’s ‘When icicles hang by the wall..’ LLL 5.2.887- Lost” 902 III (sic) WINTER From “The Merchant of ‘Tell me where is fancy bred…’ MV 3.2.63-72 Venice’ Whilst Bassanio comments on the caskets SONG From “As You Like It” ‘Blow, blow, thou winter wind…’ AYL 2.7.175- SONG 194 From “Cymbeline” ‘Hark! hark! the lark…’ Cym 2.3.19-25 SONG SONG ‘Fear no more the heat o’ th’ sun…’ Cym 4.2.258- [All SPs printed] 280 SONNETS XII ‘When I do count the clock…’ Son 12 XIX ‘Devouring Time…’ Son 19 XXX ‘When to the session of sweet silent Son 30 thought…’ LX ‘Like as the waves make towards the Son 60 pebbled shore…’ LXXI ‘No longer mourn for me when I am Son 71 XCI dead…’ Son 91 ‘Some glory in their birth, some in their skill…’ From “The Passionate ‘Crabbed age and youth…’ PP12 Pilgrim” ‘Beauty is but a vain and doubtful PP13 good…’ P17 ‘My flocks feed not…’ NB. ‘Take, o take those lips away’ (MM 4.1.1-6) ‘ is included under the title ‘From “Rollo”’ and attributed to Beaumont and Fletcher
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APPENDIX 28. Shakespeare extracts in The Children’s Treasury of Lyrical Poetry, 1875.
Title Text Source ‘A Sea Dirge’ ‘Full fathom five…’ Temp 1.2.399- 407 ‘Winter’ ‘When icicles hang by the wall…’ LLL 5.2.887- 902 ‘The Fairy Life’ Where the bee sucks…’ Temp. 5.1.88- ‘Come unto these yellow sands…’ 96 and 1.2.376- 387 ‘Lullaby for Titania’ ‘You spotted snakes with double MND 2.2.9-30 tongue…’ ‘A Happy Life’ ‘Under the greenwood tree…’ AYL 2.5.1-8, 35-42.
Shakespeare extracts in The Children’s Garland from the Best Poets, (1892 edn.)
Title Text Source ‘The Approach of the ‘Now the hungry lion roars…’ MND 5.2.1-25 Fairies’ ‘Song’ ‘Under the greenwood tree…’ AYL 2.5.1-8 and 35-42 ‘Winter’ ‘When icicles hang by the wall…’ LLL 5.2.897- 912 ‘Song of Ariel’ ‘Come unto these yellow sands…’ Temp 1.2.376- 387 ‘A Sea Dirge’ ‘Full fathom five…’ Temp 1.2.399- 407 ‘The Witches’ Meeting’ ‘When shall we three meet again…’ Mac 1.1.1-10 Sub-heading for second ‘Thrice the brindled cat hath and 4.1.1-38 extract ‘The Charm’ mewed…’ ‘Lullaby for Titania’ ‘You spotted snakes…’ MND 2.2.9-30 ‘Queen Mab’ ‘O, I see Queen Mab …’ RJ 1.4.53 and 55-74
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APPENDIX 29. Songs and Sonnets by William Shakespeare , 1865 Shakespeare extracts: NB. Act, scene and line references only given for infrequently anthologised songs. No. Title Text Source I Reveillez ‘Hark! hark! the lark…’ Cym. II Fancy ‘Tell me, where is fancy MV bred…’ III Silvia ‘Who is Silvia? …’ Two Gent. IV Youth and Love ‘O mistress mine…’ AYL V It Ver et Venus ‘It was a lover and his AYL lass…’ VI Two Maids Wooing ‘Get you hence for I must WT 4.4.293-306 a Man go …’ Autolycus – Dorcas - [SPs used] Mopsa VII Red and White ‘If she be made of red and LLL 1.2.94-101 white…’ VIII Love’s Despair ‘Take, O take those lips MM away…’ IX A Lover’s Offering ‘Hang there my verse…’ AYL 3.2.1-10 X A Supplication ‘Sweet mistress – what your CE 3.2.29-40 name is else, I know not …’ XI Eros and Anteros ‘Art thou, god, to shepherd AYL 4.3.41-64 turn’d…’ [omits interjectory lines] XII Morning Tears ‘So sweet a kiss the golden LLL 4.3.24-29 sun gives…’ XIII Praise of the ‘If love makes me forsworn LLL 4.2.106- Mistress …’ 119 XIV Love the Only ‘Study me how to please the LLL 1.1.80-93 Shadow eye indeed…’ XV The Perjuries of ‘Did not the heavenly LLL 4.3.56-70 Love rhetoric of thine eye…’ XVI The Longing that ‘On a day – alack the day - LLL 4.3.99-118 Cannot be Uttered …’ XVII Epithalamium ‘Then there is mirth in AYL 5.4.106- heaven…’ 113 and 139 - 144 XVIII Song of Blessing ‘Honour, riches, marriage- Temp. 4.1.106- blessing…’ 117 XIX Man and Woman ‘Sigh no more, ladies…’ MA XX The Youth’s Dirge ‘Come away, come away TN death…’ XXI Dirges ‘Sweet flower, with flowers RJ 5.3.12-17 thy bridal bed I strew…’ ‘Pardon, Goddess of the MA 5.3.12-21 night
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XXII The End ‘Fear no more the heat o’ Cym th’ sun…’ XXIII The Fairy Life I. ‘Where the bee sucks…’ Temp. II. ‘Come unto these Temp. yellow sands…’ III. ‘Over hill, over dale…’ MND XXIV Lullaby ‘You spotted snakes…’ MND XXV The Fairy Blessing ‘Now the hungry lion MND 5.2.1-52 roars…’ [all SPs omitted] XXVI A Sinner Tormented ‘Fie on sinful fantasy…’ MWW 5.5.92- 101 XXVII The Wisdom of the ‘Fathers that wear rags…’ Lear 2.2.238- Fool 243 and 267- 274. XXVIII The Pedlar’s Song ‘When daffodils begin to WT 4.3.1-12 peer…’ XXIX Pedlar’s Cries ‘Lawn as white as driven WT 4.4.219-230 snow…’ WT 4.4. 313- ‘Will you buy any tape…’ 321 XXX Bacchanalian Song ‘Come thou monarch of the AC vine…’ XXXI A Country Fellow’s ‘Do nothing but eat, and 2H4 5.3. 17- Song make good cheer … 22, 33-37, 46- 49 XXXII A Clown’s Helen ‘Was this fair face the AWl 1.3.69-77 cause, quoth she…’ XXXIII A Clown’s Song ‘When that I was and a tiny TN 5.1.385-404 little boy …’ XXXIV Forester’s Song ‘What shall he that hath AYL 4.2.10-19 killed the deer…’ XXXV A Sailor’s Song ‘The master, the swabber, Temp. 2.2.45- the boatswain and I…’ 53 XXXVI The Power of Song ‘Orpheus with his lute made H8 trees…’ XXXVII Spring ‘When daisies pied…’ LLL XXXVIII Winter ‘When icicles hang by the LLL wall…’ XXXIX Veneri Victrici ‘Love, Love, nothing but TC 3.1.111-122 Love, still more…’ XL A Sea Dirge ‘Full fathom five…’ Temp XLI The Lost Love ‘How should I your true Ham. 4.5. 23- love know…’ 26, 29-32, 35, 37-39. [NB. Subsequent verses lines 47- 54 and 58-65 omitted.]
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XLII Snatches I.’They bore him barefaced Ham. 4.5. 165- on the bier…’ 167, 171, 188- II. ‘Come o’er the bourn, 197 Bessy, to me…’ Lear 3.6.25-28 III.’Sleepest or wakest then ,jolly shepherd…’ Lear 3.6.41-44 XLIII The Misanthrope ‘Immortal gods, I crave no Tim 1.2.61-70 pelf…’ XLIV Nature and Man ‘Blow, blow thou winter AYL wind…’ XLV The World’s Way ‘Why let the stricken deer Ham. 3.2.259- go weep…’ 262 XLVI The Life According ‘Under the greenwood AYL to Nature tree…’
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APPENDIX 30. Pearls of Shakespeare
Extracts from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Richard III in Pearls of Shakespeare, 1860 compared with those in Dodd’s The Beauties of Shakespear 1752.
Title Text Source Dodd Puck ILLUSTRATION OF PUCK ‘I 1.2.43-57 Identical – am that merry wanderer of the Dodd assa ‘or night …was never wasted Robin there.’ Goodfellow’ to the title. True Love Ever ‘For aught that ever I could 1.1.132-149 Identical - both Crossed read … come to confusion.’ excise Hermia’s interjections The Moon ‘When Phoebe doth behold … 1.1.209-211 Identical the bladed grass.’ Assignation ‘I swear to thee by Cupid’s 1.1.169-178 Identical strongest bow … will I meet with thee.’ Love-in- ‘Thou remember’st … call it 2.1.148-168 Identical Idleness love-in-idleness.’ Time ‘The iron tongue of midnight 5.1.356 Identical – hath told twelve.’ Dodd titles it ‘Clock’. A Father’s ‘To you, your father should be 1.1.47-57 Identical Authority’ … or disfigure it.’ Dew in Flowers ‘And that same dew … own 4.1.52-55 Identical disgrace bewail.’ ILLUSTRATION OF TITANIA SLEEPING IN HER BOWER A Fairy Bank ‘I know a bank … delight’ 2.1.148-168 Identical Fairy ‘Be kind and courteous … and 3.2.157-166 Identical Courtesies do him courtesies.’ Hunting ‘We will fair queen, up to the 4.1.108-117 Pearls starts 3 mountain’s top … such sweet lines earlier. thunder.’ Same title. Hounds ‘My hounds are bred out of the 4.1.118-124 Identical Spartan kind … nor cheer’d with horn.’ The Power of The lunatic … and a name.’ 5.1.12-17 Dodd starts at Imagination line 7. Same title Night ‘Now the hungry lion roars … 5.2.1-12 Dodd continues paths to glide.’ to line 20. Same title.
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Daybreak Night’s swift dragons … 3.2.380-383 Identical churchyards.’
Richard III The Duke of ‘Now are our brows bound 1.1.5-31 Identical Gloster on his with victorious wreaths … the passage; title own Deformity idle pleasures of these days.’ ‘Richard on his own Deformity’ Day Break ‘The silent hours steal on, /And Identical flaky darkness breaks within the east’ ILLUSTRATION RICHARD HOLDING A VISOR TO HIS FACE Deceit ‘Ah! That deceit should steal 2.2.27-8 Identical such gentle shape, /And with a virtuous visor hide deep vice.’ Hope True hope is swift … and 5.2.23-4 Identical meaner creatures kings.’ A Fine Evening ‘The weary sun hath made a 5.4.1-3 Identical golden set … a goodly day tomorrow.’ Richmond’s ‘O thou! whose captain I 5.5.61-70 Identical Prayer account myself … defend me still!’ Richard starting ‘Give me another horse… do I 5.5.131-136 Identical out of his dream fear, myself.’ Conscience ‘Conscience is but a word that 5.6.39-40 Identical cowards use,/Devis’d at first to keep the strong in awe.’
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APPENDIX 31. Choice Thoughts from Shakspere
Extracts from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Richard III in Choice Thoughts from Shakspere, 1861 compared with Dodd’s The Beauties of Shakespear, 1752.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Title Text Reference Dodd Act I A Father’s ‘To you your father…or 1.1.47-57 Identical Authority disfigure it’ ‘Nun’ 1.1.47- 51 Vexations of True ‘For ought… never did run 1.1.132- Lines 132-149 Love smooth.’ 134 titled ‘True Love ever cross’d’ Assignation ‘I swear to thee … meet with 1.1.169- Identical thee’ 178 The Moon ‘When Phoebe … bladed 1.1.209- Identical grass.’ 211 Love ‘This base and vile … love is 1.1.232- Identical perjured everywhere.’ 241 Act II The Fairy Puck ‘I am that merry wanderer … 2.1.43-52 Lines 43-57 mistaketh me.’ titled ‘Puck or Robin Goodfellow’ Fairy jealousy and ‘These are the forgeries … 2.1.81-117 Lines 81-114 the Effects of it parents and original.’ misses out described by ‘described by Titania Titania’ in the title Love in Idleness ‘ Thou remember’st … love-in- 2.1.148- Identical idleness.’ 168 A Fairy Bank ‘I know a bank …delight’ 2.1.249- Identical 254 Act III Fairy Courtesies ‘Be kind and courteous … do 3.2.157- Identical him courtesies’ 166 Female Friendship ‘Is all the counsel … do feel the 3.2.199- Identical injury’ 220 Day Break ‘Night’s swift dragons … 3.2.380- Identical churchyards’ 383 Act IV The Dew in ‘That same dew … disgrace 4.1.52-55 Identical Flowers bewail’
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Hunting ‘I was with Hercules … sweet 4.1.111- Dodd starts at thunder’ 117 line 108, identical title. Dodd adds lines 118-124 under the title ‘Hounds’ Act V The Power of ‘The poet’s eye … and a name.’ 5.1.12-17 Dodd starts at Imagination line 7. Modest Duty ‘Where I have come … 5.1.95-103 Identical Always audacious eloquence’ Acceptable Time ‘The iron tongue … twelve’ 5.1.356 Dodd calls this ‘Clock’ Night ‘Now the hungry lion roars … 5.2.1-12 Dodd glide.’ continues to line 20
Richard III The Duke of ‘Now is the winter of our 1.1.1- 31 ‘Richard on Gloster on his discontent … idle pleasures of his own Deformity these days.’ Deformity’ Dodd omits lines 1-4 Gloster’s Love for ‘Those eyes of thine from mine 1.2.153- ‘Richard’s lady Anne have drawn salt tears 168 Love for Lady …prompts my tongue to speak’ Anne’. Identical extract. Gloster’s praises of ‘My dukedom to a beggarly 1.2.238- ‘On his own his own person denier … I will maintain it 246 person after after his successful with some little cost.’ his successful wooing of Lady address’ Anne Identical extract. Queen Margaret’s ‘The worm of conscience still 1.3.219- ‘Queen execrations on be-gnaw thy soul … Thou 225 Margaret’s Gloster elvish-marked, abortive, rooting execration’ hog’‘ 1.3.219 -230 High Birth ‘I was born so high,/ Our airy 1.3.261- Identical buildeth in the Cedar’s 264 top,/And dallies with the wind, and scorns he sun.’ Gloster’s ‘But then I sigh, and with a 1.3.332- ‘Gloster’s Hypocrisy piece of scripture … when most 336 Hypocrisy’ I play the devil.’ Identical extract.
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Clarence’s Dream. ‘but what was your dream … 1.4.8-72 ‘Clarence’s Scene between O, spare my guiltless wife,and Dream’. Clarence and my poor children.’ Identical Brackenbury extract.
Sorrow ‘Sorrow breaks seasons and 1.4.72-3 Identical reposing hours,/ Makes night mornings, and the noon tide night. The Cares of ‘Princes have but their titles for 1.4.74-79 ‘Greatness, its Greatness their glories … nothing differs cares’. but the outward fame.’ Identical extract. The Murderers’ Account of Conscience Deceit ‘Ah! That deceit should steal 2.2.27-28 Identical. such gentle shape,/And with a virtuous visor hide deep vice Submission to ‘In common worldly things ‘tis 2.2.35-39 Identical Heaven, our duty call’d ungrateful …royal debt it lent you.’ The Duchess of ‘Accursed and unquiet 2.4.54-64 York’s wrangling days … Or let me die Lamentation for to look on death no more’ Misfortunes of her Family The Vanity of ‘O momentary grace of mortal 3.4.96- Identical Trust in Man men … Into the fatal bowels of 101 the deep.’ Contemplation ‘When holy and devout 3.7.92-4 Identical religious men … So sweet is zealous contemplation.’ Description of the ‘The tyrannous and bloody act 4.3.1-22 Identical Murder of the Two is done … Young Princes in To bear these tidings to the the Tower bloody king.’ Expedition ‘Come I have learn’d, that 4.3.51-55 Identical fearful commenting ,/Is leaden servitor to dull delay ….and herald for a king.’ ‘Queen Margaret’s ‘I call’d thee then poor shadow 4.4.82- ‘Queen Upbraidings of … To torture thee the more, 108 Margaret’s Queen Elizabeth being what thou art.’ Exprobation’. Identical extract.
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Character of King ‘Tetchy and wayward was thy 4.4.169- ‘His mother’s Richard by his infancy …proud, subtle, sly and 172 character of mother bloody’ King Richard’. Identical extract.
Richmond’s ‘Fellows in arms and my most 5.2.1-16 Address to his loving friends …By this one army before the bloody trial of sharp war.’ Battle of Bosworth Hope ‘True hope is swift, and flies 5.2.23-4 Identical with swallow’s wings;/ Kings it makes gods; and meaner creatures kings.’ A Fine Evening ‘The weary sun hath made a 5.4.1-3 Used by Dodd golden set…’ only Day-break ‘The silent hours steal on,/ And 5.5.38-39 Identical flaky darkness breaks within the east.’ Richmond’s Prayer ‘O thou! Whose captain I 5.5.61-70 ‘Richmond’s before the Battle account myself …. Defend me Prayer’. still.’ Identical extract Richard Starting ‘Give me another horse … 5.5.131- Identical out of his Dream What, do I fear myself?’ 135 Conscience ‘Conscience is but a word that 5.6.39-40 Identical cowards use, / Devis’d at first to keep the strong in awe.’ Richard’s Address ‘A thousand hearts are great 5.6.77-81 ‘Richard before the Battle within my bosom … victory sit before the on our helms!’ battle’. Richard’s ‘Slave I have set my life upon a 5.7.9-13 ‘Scene VIII. Desperation on the cart … my kingdom for a Alarum. enter battlefield horse.’ King Richard’ 5.7.11
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APPENDIX 32. Shakespeare Proverbs
Extracts from Shakespeare, pages 39-41 in Shakespeare Proverbs, 1848.
God sends a curst cow short horns Grace is grace, despite of all controversy Good wine needs no bush. Great men should drink with harness on their throats. Good reason must, of force, give place to better. Great floods have flown /From simple sources. Great men may jest with Saints: ‘tis wit in them, But in the less, foul profanation. Good alone/ is good, without a name; vileness is so: The property by what it is should go, Not by the title. Grief boundeth where it falls, Not with the empty hollowness, but weight. Grief makes one hour ten. Gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite The man that mocks at it, and set it alight. Glory is like a circle in the water, Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, Till, by broad spreading, it disperse to naught. Great men have reaching hands. Give to a gracious message A host of tongues; but ill ill tidings tell, Themselves when they be felt. Greatness, once fallen out with fortune Must fall out with men too. Good words are better than bad strokes. Great griefs medicine the less. Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney sweepers come to dust. Good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used. Good name in man and woman, Is the immediate jewel of their souls. Good things should be praised.
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APPENDIX 33 Birthday Chimes fromShakespeare Shakespeare extracts from April in Birthday Chimes from Shakespeare 1886: Date Text Source 1 O how his spring of love resembleth TGV 1.3.84-5 The uncertain glory of an April day.
It never yet did hurt 2H4 1.3.34-5 To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope. 2 To do obsequious sorrow: but to persevere Ham 1.2.92-96 In obstinate condolement is a course Of impious stubbornness, ‘tis unmanly grief, It shows a will most incorrect to heaven, A heart unfortified, a mind impatient
3 How far that little candle throws his beams MV 5.1.90-1 So shines a good deed in a naughty world 4 For there is nothing makes it either good or Ham 2.2.251-2 bad But thinking makes it so.
I have heard of the lady, and good words MM 3.1.213-4 Went with her name. 5 Friendship is constant in all other things MA 2.1.165-169 Save in the office and affairs of love Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues. Let every eye negotiate for itself, And trust no agent; 6 God shall be my hope 2H6 2.3.24-5 My stay, my guide, and lantern to my feet.
We will not from the helm to sit and weep 3H6 5.4.20-22 But keep our course, though the rough wind say no. 7 We ignorant of ourselves AC 2.1.5-8 Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers, Deny us for our good; so find we profit By losing of our prayers. 8 The sense of death is most in apprehension, MM 3.1.76-79 And the poor beetle that we tread upon In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies. 9 Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace H8 3.2.446-7 To silence envious tongues.
Doubting things go ill often hurts more Cym 1.6.96-7 Than to be sure they do. 10 No legacy is so rich as honesty. AW 3.5.13
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Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied RJ 2.2.21-2 And vice sometime by action dignified. 11 A fellow of plain uncoined constancy. H5 5.2.154
She is of so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a Oth, 2.3.312-13 disposition. 12 To be in anger is impiety Tim 3.6.56-7 But who is man that is not angry.
Opinion’s but a fool, that makes us scan Per Sc.6.59-60 The outward habit by the inward man. 13 O how wretched H8 3.2.367-368 Is that poor man that hangs on princes’ favours. There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to, That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, More pangs and fears than wars or women have, And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, Never to hope again. 14 Weariness Cym 3.6.33-35 Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth Find the pillow down hard. 15 Let us not burden our remembrance Temp 5.1.202-3 With a heaviness that’s gone.
Pray you that the right might thrive. KL 5.2.2 16 To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, KJ 4.2.11-16 To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. 17 Rightly to be great Ham 4.4. Is not to stir without great argument, ( Q2 add lines) But greatly to find quarrel in a straw 44-7 When honour’s at the stake. 18 Good fortune guide thee. R3 4.1.91
Let’s carry with us ears and eyes for the time, Cor 2.1.265-7 But hearts for the event. 20 Time is like a fashionable host, TC 3.3.159-63 That slightly shakes his parting guest by th’hand And, with his arms outstretched as he would fly, Grasps in the comer. Welcome ever smiles, And farewell goes out sighing.
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21 Out with it boldly, truth loves open dealing. H8 3.1.39
Winning would put any man into courage. Cym 2.3.7 22 Lowliness is young ambition’s ladder, JC 2.1.22-27 Whereto the climber-upward turns his face; But when he once attains the upmost round, He then unto the ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend. 23 A violet in the youth of primy nature, Ham 1.3.7-10 Forward not permanent, sweet not lasting, The perfume and suppliance of a minute, No more. Powers divine behold our human action WT 3.2.27-8 24 When you depart – sorrow abides, and MA 1.1.96-7 happiness takes his leave. Then wisely weigh Temp 2.1.8-9 Our sorrow with our comfort. 25 Things base and vile, holding no quantity, MND 1.1.332-8 Love can transpose to form and dignity. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. Nor hath love’s mind of any judgement taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste. And therefore is love said to be a child. 26 In my youth I never did apply AYL 2.3.49-54 Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood, Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo The means of weakness and debility. Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, Frosty but kindly.
27 I do much wonder that one man, seeing how MA 2.3.7-12 much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love.
28 For his bounty AC 5.2.85-7 There was no winter in it; an autumn ‘twas, That grew the more by reaping.
A gracious innocent soul. WT 2.3.29
29 Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care, Mac 2.3.35-38 The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
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Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, Chief nourisher in life’s feast. 30 Things done well H8 1.2.89-90 And with a care, exempt themselves from fear. She looks as clear TS 2.1.172-3 As morning roses newly washed with dew.
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APPENDIX 34. Shakespeare Tercentenary Pocket Almanack
Entries for June in the Shakespeare Tercentenary Pocket Almanack 1864 Date Entry Text 1st June ‘No Popery Riots, 1780’ ‘The storm is up, and all is on the hazard’ JC 3rd June ‘Freedom of Lond. Pres. to ‘Honours thrive/ When Sir J. Lawrence, 1859’ rather from our acts we them derive /Than our forgoers’ AW 8th June ‘Douglas Jerrold died, ‘A fellow of infinite jest’ 1857’ Ham 10th June ‘American Civil War ‘What stratagems, how Commenced, 1861’ fell, how butcherly, /Erroneous, mutinous, and unnatural/ This deadly quarrel daily doth beget’ 3H6 14th June ‘Palmer the Poisoner, ‘Which is the villain? Let executed, 1856’ me see his eyes/ That when I note another man like him/ I may avoid him’ MA 18th June ‘Battle of Waterloo, 1815’ ‘What valiant foemen, like to autumn’s corn, / Have we mown down in tops of all their pride’ 3H6 22nd June ‘Income Tax commenced, ‘Our oppression/ Exceeds 1842’ what we expected’ AC 27th June ‘Cawnpore Massacre, June ‘Give me ample 27th 1857’ satisfaction/ For these deep shames and great indignities’ CE 28th June ‘Queen Victoria crowned, ‘A pattern to all princes 1838’ living with her/ And all that shall succeed’ H8
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APPENDIX 35. The Wisdom and Genius of Shakspeare
Extracts from A Midsummer Night’s Dream used in The Wisdom and Genius of Shakspeare, 1838.
In the Moral Philosophy Section:
200 Disinterestedness Never anything can be amiss/When simpleness and duty tender it’ 413 Marriage Earthlier happy is the rose distill’d Then that, which, withering on the virgin thorn Grows, lives and dies, in single blessedness. 498 Modest Silence ‘What poor duty cannot do … audacious eleoquence.’
In the Depraved Character section:
565 With doubler tongue/Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung’
In the Female Characters / Subordinate section:
615 O when she’s angry … she is fierce.’
In the Paintings of Nature and the Passions section:
2. ‘The moon methinks looks with a watery eye/And when she weeps, weeps every little flower’ 3. Phoebe doth behold …bladed grass. 4. The moon like to a silver bow/ New bent in heaven. 21. Night’s swift dragons … Aurora’s harbinger. 41. Now the hungry lion …dream. 65. That same dew … disgrace bewail. 71. I know a bank … wrap a fairy in. 75. I am that merry wanderer … never wasted there. 77. Over hill, over dale … ear 92. These things seem small and undistinguishable/ Like far off mountains turned into clouds. 123. O how ripe in show/ Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow. 178. O’er their brows with death-counterfeiting sleep/ With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep 269. The course of true love … confusion. 274. We cannot fight for love, as men may do/We should be wooed and were not made to woo. 284 Things base and vile, holding no quality … boy love is perjured every where. 291. I swear to thee by Cupid’s bow … meet with thee. 297. Leave you your power to draw/ And I shall have no power to follow you. 325. I will wind you in my arms … barky fingers of the elm. 340. Lovers and madmen … comprehends
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341. The lunatic, the lover … bush supposed a bear.
In the Aphorisms section:
132. Who will not change a raven for a dove? 405. Bootless speed!/When cowardice pursues, and valour flies. 528. Reason and love keep little company together. 551. A surfeit of the sweetest thing/The deepest loathing to the stomach brings. 605. Scorn and derision never come in tears.
In the Miscellaneous section:
85. Is all the counsel we two … ancient love asunder. 115. Dark night, that from the eye his function takes … double recompense. 123. The iron tongue of midnight … 134. I was with Hercules and … sweet thunder 135. My hounds are bred … with horn. 137. I with Morning’s love … salt green streams 139. These are the forgeries of jealousy … which is which. 141. My gentle Puck, come hither, thou remember’st … love-in –idleness. 142. Be kind and courteous … do him courtesies
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APPENDIX 36 The Oxford Book of English Verse.
I. Shakespeare extracts in the 1900 and 1939 editions of The Oxford Book of English Verse edited by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.
No. Title Text Source 123 Silvia ‘Who is Silvia…’ TGV 4.2.38-52 124 The Blossom ‘On a day –alack the day…’ LLL 4.3.100-119 125 Spring and Winter i. ‘When daisies pied..’ LLL 126 ii ‘When icicles hang…’ 5.2.879-896
5.2.897-912 127 Fairyland i. ‘Over hill, over dale…’ MND 128 ii. ‘You spotted snakes…’ 2.1.2-15 129 iii. ‘Come unto these yellow MND sands…’ 2.2.9-22 130 iv. ‘Where the bee sucks…’ Temp 131 v. ‘Full fathom five…’ 1.2.376-387
Temp 5.1.88-94 Temp 1.2.397-405 132 Love ‘Tell me where is fancy bred...’ MV 3.2. 63-72 133 Sweet and Twenty ‘O mistress mine…’ TN 2.3.39-52 134 Dirge ‘Come away, come away TN death…’ 2.4.51-66 135 Under the Greenwood ‘Under the greenwood tree…’ AYL 2.5.1- Tree 8 & 35-42 & 47-54 136 Blow,blow, thou Winter ‘Blow, blow, thou winter AYL Wind wind…’ 3.1.174-193 137 It was a Lover and his ‘It was a lover and his lass…’ AYL Lass 5.2.15-38 138 Take, O take those Lips ‘Take, O take those lips MM 4.1.1-6 away away…’ 139 Aubade ‘Hark!hark! the lark…’ Cym 2.3.19- 25 140 Fidele ‘Fear no more the heat o’the Cym sun…’ 4.2.258-280 141 Bridal song ‘Roses, their sharp spines TNK 1.1.1- being gone…’ 24 142 Dirge of the Three ‘Urns and odours bring away!’ TNK 1.5.1- Queens 10
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143 Orpheus ‘Orpheus with his lute made H8 3.1.3- trees…’ 14 144 The Phoenix and the ‘Let the bird of loudest lay…’ Turtle 145 Sonnets ‘Shall I compare thee to a Son. 18 (i) Summer day? 146 (ii) ‘When in disgrace with fortune Son. 29 147 (iii) ‘When to the sessions of sweet Son 30 silent thought’ 148 (iv) ‘Thy bosom is endeared with Son. 31 all hearts…’ 149 (v) ‘What is your substance…’ Son. 53 150 (vi) ‘O how much more doth Son. 54 beauty beauteous seem’ 151 (vii) ‘Being your slave what should Son.57 I do but tend’ 152 (viii) ‘That time of year thou may’st Son.73 in me behold’ 153 (ix) ‘Farewell! Thou art too dear Son. 87 for my possessing’ 154 (x) ‘Then hate me when thou wilt: Son. 90 if ever, now’ 155 (xi) ‘They that have power to hurt Son. 94 and will do none’ 156 (xii) ‘How like a Winter hath my Son. 97 absence been’ 157 (xiii) ‘From you have I been absent Son. 98 in the spring’ 158 (xiv) ‘My love is strengthen’d, Son 102 though more weak in seeming’ 159 (xv) ‘To me fair friend you can Son. 104 never be old’ 160 (xvi) ‘When in the chronicle of Son. 106 wasted time’ 161 (xvii) ‘O Never say that I was false Son. 109 of heart’ 162 (xviii) ‘Let me not to the marriage of Son. 116 true minds’ 163 (xix) ‘Th’expense of Spirit in a Son. 129 waste of shame’ 164 (xx) ‘Poor soul, the centre of my Son. 146 sinful earth’
NB.1. Poem numbers refer to the 1900 edition. In the 1939 edition the Shakespeare extracts appear in the same order and are numbered 133 to 174. 2. Quiller-Couch also selects ‘Crabbed age and youth…’ from The Passionate Pilgrim but places this as poem No. 64 in an ‘Anonymous’ section earlier in the book. He gives it the following attribution: ‘? William Shakespeare’.
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II. Shakespeare extracts in The New Oxford Book of English Verse, 1972 edited by Helen Gardner.
No. Title Text Source 115 Courser and Jennet ‘But, lo! From forth a copse V&A 259- that neighbours by…’ 324 116 An Outcry upon ‘O Opportunity! thy guilt is Luc 876- Opportunity great…’ 910 117 Spring and Winter ‘When daisies pied…’ LLL (i) 5.2.879-896 118 (ii) ‘When icicles hang…’ LLL 5.2.897-912 119 Fairy Songs ‘Over hill, over dale…’ MND (i) 2.1.2- 15 120 (ii) ‘You spotted snakes…’ MND 2.2.9- 22 121 Songs sung in Arden ‘Blow, blow, thou winter AYL (i) wind…’ 3.1.174-193 122 (ii) ‘It was a lover and his lass…’ AYL 5.2.15-38 123 Feste’s Songs (i) ‘O mistress mine… TN 2.3.39- 52 124 (ii) ‘Come away, come away, TN death…’ 2.4.51-66 125 (iii) ‘When that I was and a little TN tiny boy…’ 5.1.385-404 126 At the Moated Grange ‘Take, O! take those lips MM away…’ 4.1.1-16 127 Dirge for Fidele ‘Fear no more the heat o’the Cym sun…’ 4.2.258-280 128 Autolycus Sings ‘When daffodils begin to WT peer…’ 4.3.1-12 129 Ariel’s Songs (i) ‘Come unto these yellow Temp sands…’ 1.2.376-387 130 (ii) ‘Full fathom five…’ Temp 1.2.397-405 131 (iii) ‘Where the bee sucks’ Temp 5.1.88-94 132 Sweet Music’s Power ‘Orpheus with his lute made Hen VIII trees…’ 3.1.3-14 133 A Bridal Song ‘Roses their sharp spines being TNK gone…’ 1.1.1-24 134 Sonnets (i) ‘Shall I compare thee to a Son. 18 summer’s day?…’ 135 (ii) ‘When in disgrace with Son. 29 fortune…’ 136 (iii) ‘When to the sessions of sweet Son. 30 silent thought…’
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137 (iv) ‘Thy bosom is endeared with Son. 31 all hearts…’ 138 (v) ‘Not marble, nor the gilded Son. 55 monuments…’ 139 (vi) ‘Like as the waves make Son. 60 towards the pebbled shore…’ 140 (vii) ‘When I have seen by time’s Son. 64 fell hand defaced…’ 141 (viii) ‘Since brass, nor stone, nor Son. 65 earth, nor boundless sea…’ 142 (ix) ‘Tired with all these, for restful Son. 66 death I cry…’ 143 (x) ‘That time of year thou mayst Son. 73 in me behold…’ 144 (xi) ‘Farewell! Thou art too dear Son. 87 for my possessing…’ 145 (xii) ‘Then hate me when thou Son. 90 wilt…’ 146 (xiii) ‘They that have power to hurt Son. 94 and will do none…’ 147 (xiv) ‘How like a winter hath my Son. 97 absence been…’ 148 (xv) ‘From you have I been absent Son. 98 in the spring…’ 149 (xvi) ‘When in the chronicle of Son. 106 wasted time…’ 150 (xvii) ‘O! never say that I was false Son. 109 of heart…’ 151 (xviii) ‘Let me not to the marriage of Son. 116 true minds…’ 152 (xix) ‘The expense of spirit in a Son. 129 waste of shame..’ 153 (xx) ‘Poor soul. The centre of my Son.146 sinful earth…’ 154 The Phoenix and the ‘Let the bird of loudest lay…’ Turtle
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III. Shakespeare extracts used in The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1999 edited by Christopher Ricks. No. Title Text Source 89 The Phoenix and Turtle 90-100 from the Sonnets 90 Sonnet 18 ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day…’ 91 Sonnet 53 ‘What is your substance, whereof are you made,…’ 92 Sonnet 55 ‘Not marble, nor the guilded monuments…’ 93 Sonnet 60 ‘Like as the waves make towards the pibled shore…’ 94 Sonnet 73 ‘That time of yeeare thous maist in me behold…’ 95 Sonnet 86 ‘Was it the proud full saile of his great verse…’ 96 Sonnet 94 ‘They that have power to hurt, and will do none…’ 97 Sonnet 116 ‘Let me not to the marriage of true mindes…’ 98 Sonnet 129 ‘Th’expence of Spirit in a waste of shame…’ 99 Sonnet 130 ‘My Mistres eyes are nothing like the Sunne..’ 100 Sonnet 138 ‘When my love sweares that she is made of truth… 101 from Love’s ‘When daisies pied, and violets LLL Labour’s Lost [Act blew…’ V,scene ii] ‘When Isicles hang by the wall…’ [Spring] [Winter] 102 from Twelfth Night ‘Feste. .O Mistris mine…’ TN [Act II, scene iii]
103 [Act V, scene I] ‘Feste. When that I was and a little TN tiny boy…’ 104 from Measure for ‘Mariana. Take,oh take those lips MM Measure [Act away…’ IV,scene i] 105 from Cymbeline [Act ‘Guiderius. Feare no more the heate Cym IV,scene ii] o’the Sun…’ 106 from The Tempest ‘Ariel. Full fadom five thy Father Temp [Act I, scene ii] lies…’ 107 from Richard III ‘[enter Richard Duke of Gloster, R3 [Act I, scene I, lines solus] 1-41] Now is the Winter of our Discontent…’
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108 from Romeo and ‘Romeo. I dreampt a dreame to RJ Juliet [Act 1,scene night…’ (‘Queen Mab Speech’) iv, lines 50-96] 109 from Richard II,[Act ‘John of Gaunt.This royall Throne R2 II,scene I, lines 40- of Kings…’ 68] 110 from A Midsummer ‘Hippolita.’Tis strange … MND Night’s Dream [Act Theseus…The Poets eye in a fine V,scene I, lines 1- frenzy rolling… 27] 111 from The Merchant ‘Portia. Then must the Jew be MV of Venice[Act mercifull. IV,scene i. Lines Shylock. On what compulsion… 180-203] Portia. The quality of mercy…’ 112 from Julius Caesar ‘Mark Antony’Friends, Romans, JC [Act III, scene ii, Countrymen…’ lines 73-107] 113 from As You Like It ‘Duke Senior. Thou seest, we are AYL [Act II, scene vii, not all alone unhappie… lines 136-66 Jaques. All the world’s a stage…’ 114 from Twelfth Night ‘Duke. If Musicke be the food of TN [Act I, scene I, lines Love, play on…’ 1-15] 115 from Hamlet [Act ‘Hamlet. To be, or not to be…’ Ham III,scene i, lines 56- 88] 116 from Measure for ‘Isabella. What saies my brother? MM Measure[Act III, … scene i. Lines 116- Claudio. Ay, but to die, and go we 32] know not where…’ 117 from Othello [Act ‘Othello It is the Cause, it is the Oth V,scene ii, lines 1- Cause (my Soule)…’ 23]
118 from King Lear[Act ‘Edgar Come on Sir,/here’s Lear IV,scene v, lines 11- the place, stand still: how 25] feareful/And dizzie ‘tis…’ 119 from Macbeth [Act ‘ [A Cry within of Women] Mac V, scene v, lines 8- Seyton. It is the cry of women… 29] Macbeth...To morrow…’ 120 from Antony and ‘Enobarbus. I will tell AC Cleopatra [Act II, you/The barge she sat in…’ scene ii, lines 190- 218] 121 from The Tempest ‘Prospero. You doe looke (my Temp [Act IV,scene i, son)…Our Revels now are lines ended…’ 146-163]
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APPENDIX 37. This England
Shakespeare extracts in This England, 1915.
In the section ‘Merry England’ Title Text Source ‘Rosalind and ‘Jac. I prithee pretty youth let me be AYL 4.1.1-27 Jacques’ better acquainted with thee…’ ‘Winter’ ‘When icicles hang by the wall…’ LLL 5.5.897-912 ‘Sack’ ‘Good faith, this same young sober- 2H4 4.3.84-121 blooded boy doth not love me,,,’ In the section ‘Her Sweet Corners’* ‘Elves’ ‘Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing Temp 5.1.33-56 lakes and groves…’ ‘Herne the Hunter’ ‘There is an old tale goes that Herne MW 4.4.27-39 the hunter…’ In the section ‘The Great Ones’ ‘Henry the Fifth’ ‘If we are marked to die…’ H5 4.3.20-67 ‘Falstaff’ ‘You rogue, there’s lime in this sack 1H4 2.5.123-134 too…’ In the section ‘The Vital Commoners’** ‘Kings Sons’ ‘But up to th’ mountains! ...’ Cym 3.3.73-98 ‘On Kings’ ‘But if the cause be not good …’ H5 4.1.133-145 * Title from Walter de la Mere’s poem ‘Trees’. ** Title from Falstaff’s soliloquy 2H4 4.2.84-121
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APPENDIX 38. The Spirit of Man
I. My undated copy of the anthology, probably from the 1940s, lists the following impressions: India Paper Edition: January 1916, February 1916, January 1917. March 1918, January 1919, July 1919, September 1921, June 1917, March 1930, November 1934, January 1937. Ordinary Edition: January 1916, February 1916, March 1916, August 1916, January 1917, March 1918, January 1919, July 1919, March 1923,February 1925 June 1927, May 1929, March 1930, February 1934, November 1934, January 1937, July 1939, November 1939, January 1940, August 1940, February 1941, August 1941, February 1942, May 1942, January 1943, October 1944.
II. The Framework of the anthology as set out on the contents page: BOOK I Nos. 1-65 Dissatisfaction – Retirement – Spiritual Desire – Idea of God – Spiritual Love & Praise.
BOOK II Nos. 66-208 The Muses – Beauty is Truth – Fairyland – Romance –Childhood – Ideal Love – Nature – Spring & Lovers – Youth & Age.
BOOK III Nos. 209 –341 Mortality – Melancholy – Sorrow – Sin – Ethics & Conduct – Philosophies & Humanities.
BOOK VI Nos. 342-449 Lovingkindness – Sympathies – Christian Charity – Myths – Christian Virtue –Vocation & Active Virtue – Social Virtue & Freedom – Heroism – The Happy Warrior – Life in Death – The Heavenly Kingdom.
II. Shakespeare Extracts in The Spirit of Man * indicates modification by Bridges Poem Header Text Source Marginal No. note 3 Dismay You do look, my son…To still my Temp ‘Shakespeare beating heart.’ 4.1.146- bids adieu to 163 the stage’ 13 Adversity ‘This battle fares like to the 3H6 ‘K. Henry VI morning’s war,.. and treason wait 2.5.1-54 at the battle on him.’ of Wakefield 75 Music ‘Orpheus with his lute…’ H8 3.1.3-14 91 The ‘Shall I compare thee to a Son 18 Immortal summer’s day…’
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Muse 92 Athens ‘Not marble, nor the gilded Son 55 monuments…’ 102 Elfland ‘Come unto these yellow sands…’ Temp *[Not 1.2.377- presented as 389 a two part song] 104 Fairy ‘Where the bee sucks…’ Temp Flights 5.1.88- 96 108 Stars and ‘How sweet the moonlight sits MV Angels upon this bank…’ 5.1.54- 65 139 The ‘…Making a complement of Son 21 *[Uses lines Rainbow proud compare … rondure 5,6,7,8] hems…’ 141 Heaven’s ‘Thy bosom is endeared…’ Son 31 Shadows 142 Ideal Love ‘When in the chronicle of wasted Son 106 time…’ 146 Ideal Love ‘From you have I been absent in Son 98 the spring…’ 149 Ideal Love ‘How like a winter hath my Son 97 absence been…’ 151 Ideal Love ‘When in disgrace with fortune…’ Son 29 155 Ideal Love ‘When to the sessions of sweet Son 30 silent thought…’ 189 Spring-time ‘Hark! hark! the lark…’ Cym 2.3.19- 25 191 Spring ‘It was a lover and his lass…’ AYL Lovers 5.3.15- 38 196 Spring ‘O Mistress mine…’ TN *[Omits Lovers 2.3.38- dialogue 43, 46- between 51 verses]
197 The ‘Under the greenwood tree…’ AYL *[Omits Greenwood 2.5.1-8, dialogue 35-42 between verses] 198 The ‘Blow, blow thou winter wind…’ AYL Greenwood 2.7.175- 194 199 Age & ‘Crabbed Age and Youth…’ PP12 Youth
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208 Fancy’s ‘Tell me where is Fancy bred…’ MV Knell 3.2.63- 72 212 The Wastes ‘When I do count the clock that Son 12 of Time tells the time…’ 222 Mortality ‘No longer mourn for me when I Son 71 am dead…’ 223 Mortality ‘Full fathom five…’ Temp *[Not 1.2.339- presented 408 with SPs as part song] 225 Winter ‘That time of year thou mayst in Son 73 me behold…’ 228 Mortality ‘How should I your true love Ham [Omits know…’ 4.4.23- intervening 39 dialogue]
234 Death/Grief ‘SALISBURY: Pardon me KJ *[Runs madam…shame and bitterness.’ 2.2.65- together 74 & dialogue 3.4.76- from two 105 separate scenes] 240 Mortality ‘Like as the waves make towards Son 60 the pebbled shore…’ 283 The ‘The expense of spirit …’ Son 129 Prisoner 300 The ‘…Sure he that made us with such Ham Rational large discourse/ Looking before (Q2) Soul and after, gave us not/That 4.4.27- capability and godlike reason/To 30 fust in us unused.’ 307 The free ‘…Blest are those/Whose bold Ham Spirit and judgement are so well 3.2.66- commingled…As I do thee.’ 72 359 Hospitality ‘True it is that we have seen better AYL days…may be minister’d.’ 2.7.120- 126 361 Commiserat ‘Poor naked wretches …the Lear ion heav’ns more just.’ 3.3.28- 36 428 Joy of ‘…herein lives wisdom, beauty, Son 11 *[uses lines 5 Battle and increase;/Without this, folly, & 6] age, and cold decay…’ 440 The Saintly ‘The setting sun, and music at the R2 *[Uses one Company close.’ 2.1.12 mid-speech line]
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APPENDIX 39. Word from England
Shakespeare Extracts in Word from England, 1940.
Asterisk indicates also included in Word from Home In the section ‘Times and Seasons’ pp. 1-16 Page Title First Line Source NB.short extracts given in full 4 ‘Night’s candles are burnt out and RJ jocund day/Stands tiptoe on the mighty mountain top.’ 4 ‘Fairy Song’ ‘Over hill, over dale…’ MND 5 ‘Fairy Song’ ‘Where the bee sucks…’ Temp 9 ‘For every man has business and Ham desire/ Such as it is; and for mine own poor part/ Look you I’ll go pray.’ 10 ‘Blow, blow, thou winter wind…’ AYL 14 ‘How sweet the moonlight sleeps MV upon this bank …’ In the section ‘Living in the Country’ pp. 17-38 17 ‘Winter’ ‘When icicles hang by the wall…’ LLL 19 ‘Sweet are the uses of AYL adversity…’ 20 ‘Ariel’s Song’ ‘Come unto these yellow sands…’ Temp In the section ‘Music and Mystery’ pp. 39-58 41* ‘Orpheus with his lute made H8 trees…’ 43 ‘If music be the food of love…’ TN 44 ‘Subtle as Sphinx: as sweet and LLL musical/ As bright as Apollo’s NB. Attrinuted lute.Strung with her hair.’ but not sourced by anthologist In the section ‘And then the Lover’ pp.59-81 61 ‘Make me a willow cabin at your TN gate…’ 65* ‘Shall I compare thee to a Son.18 summer’s day…’ NB Not sources by anthologist
66* ‘O mistress mine where are you TN roaming…’ NB Not sourced by anthologist
67 ‘TUBAL: There came divers of MV Antonio’s creditors…’
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79* ‘Ophelia’s Song’ ‘How should I your true love Ham know…’
In the section ‘A Time to Play’ pp. 82-97 82 ‘The Chase’ ‘ “Thou hast beengone” quoth VA she…’ 82 ‘What shall he that hath killed the AYL deer…’ There are no extracts in the section ‘Travel and Adventure’ pp. 98-111. In the section ‘Native Land’ pp. 112-128 113* ‘This England never did, nor never KJ shall…’ There are no extracts from Shakespeare in the section ‘The Soldier’ pp. 129-152. In the section ‘The Sea andAir’ pp. 153-179 156 ‘Full fathom five thy father lies…’ Temp In the section ‘Into Battle’ pp.180-216 181 ‘London Ale’ ‘BOY: Would I were in an alehouse H5 in London! I would give all my fame for a pot of ale.’ 181 ‘Before Battle’ ‘Therefore should every soldier in H5 the wars do as every sick man…’ 191* ‘Before Harfleur’ ‘Once more unto the breach…’ H5 191 ‘Before ‘For he today that sheds his blood H5 Agincourt’ with me…’ 210 ‘The Entente’ ‘Never war advance/ His bleeding H5 sword ‘twixt England and fair France.’ In the section ‘Courage and Endeavour’ pp. 217-231 221 ‘There is a tide in the affairs of JC men…’ 223 ‘For honour travels in strait so TC narrow/ Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path.’ In the section ‘Journey’s End’ pp 232-248 232 ‘Death as the psalmist saith is 2H4 certain to all. Hw a good yoke of bullock at Stamford Fair?’
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APPENDIX 40. The Times Broadsheets.
I. The Content of Sets 1 to 6 Set 1 1. THE TWO TESTAMENTS Ecclestiasticus I [‘Vanity of vanities…’] Romans VIII, 31-39 LET GOD ARISE From psalm lxviii 2. Each poem is headed with the poet’s name. WORDSWORTH ‘It is not to be thought of that the Flood…’; SHAKESPEARE [part of the St Crispin’s day speech from Henry V [‘By Jove…]; MILTON from Samson Agonistes ‘O how comely it is, and how reviving…’; 3. PERICLES TO THE ATHENIANS from Thucydides and THE ENGLISH EXPEDITIONARY ARMY IN SPAIN,A.D. 1367 from Lord Berners’ Froissart Ch. 237 4. THE COMPLEAT ANGLER ON BIRDS AND TROUTS. Two prose passages: ON BIRDS and TROUT FISHING and a short poem THE MILKMAID’S SONG all from Walton’s The Compleat Angler 5. A GAME OF CRIBBAGE long prose passage from Dickens’The Old Curiosity Shop. 6. ENGLAND AT WAR poem from Macaulay ‘Attend, all ye who list to hear our noble England’s praise…’ Set 2 71. THE SONG OF DEBORAH The Book of Judges ch. V 8. FOUR POEMS ON THE WAR. ‘For All We have and Are’ Kipling ‘Into Battle’ Julian Grenfell ‘To Women’ Laurence Binyon ‘The Wife of Flanders’ G.K. Chesterton 9. THREE ESSAYS by FRANCIS BACON ‘Of Death’; ‘Of Revenge’; ‘Of Adversity’ 10. DAVID HARRIS, Cricketer from The Cricketers of My Time by John Nyren (1734 -1797) 11. A WORTHY COMMANDER from Characters by Sir Thomas Overbury, (1581- 1613). 12. PARTRIDGE AT THE PLAY from Tom Jones, Henry Fielding. Set 3 13. THE BLESSED LIFE Job v, 6-26 and Psalm xci. 14. THE LAST FIGHT OF THE REVENGE from Sir Walter Raleigh, 1591. 15. THE WINCHESTER COUNTY Burghclere, Monday Morning, 31st October,1825,from Cobbett’s Rural Rides. 16. SONGS FROM SHAKESPEARE 17. MR MICAWBER’S TRANSACTIONS from Dickens’ David Copperfield. 18. JOHN CAVANAGH, THE FIVES PLAYER from Hazlitt’s Indian Jugglers 1819. Set 4 19. KING SOLOMON’S PRAYER 1 Kings VIII, 22-53 20. THE MEN IN BUCKRAM from 1 Henry IV ii, 4
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21. A FUTURE LIFE from Tolstoi’s War and Peace; INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY [‘Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting…And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore’] Wordsworth. 22. A SWIM BELOW NIAGARA from Letters of E.J. Trelawny. 23. ADONAIS from Shelley’s Adonais [‘Peace, peace! He is not dead, he doth not sleep…Beacons from the abode where the eternal are’] 24. TWO LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB ‘To Wordsworth January 30, 1801’ ‘To Coleridge March 9, 1822. Set 5 25. DAVID AND GOLIATH 1 Samuel, xvii 26. THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS from Pope’s Essay on Man [ ‘Honour and shame from no condition rise…All end, in love of God and love of Man’] 27. PRAYER passage from Meredith’s Beauchamp’s Career; extract from Johnson’s Vanity of Human Wishes [‘Where then shall hope and fear their objects find?...and makes the happiness she does not find.’];PRAYER AND PRAISE from Davenant’s Gondibert [‘Praise is devotion fit for mighty Minds!...Heaven’s Vault receives what would the Palace tear.’] 28. THE PASHA from Kinglake’s Eothen 29. FIELDING’S VOYAGE TO LISBON. A QUARREL WITH THE CAPTAIN from Fielding’s Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, 1754. 30. BALLAD OF AGINCOURT Michael Drayton (1563-1631) Set 6 31. ELIJAH AND THE RAIN 1 Kings xviii 32. GRAY’S ELEGY 33. THE RIVER OF DEATH from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress 34. THE CITY AT NIGHT. THE POET ‘Earth has not any thing to show more fair…’ Wordsworth; THE PHILOSOPHER from Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus; THE CONSTABLE passage from Much Ado About Nothing iii,3. 35. OLD TREES passages from W.S. Landor, ‘Yew Trees’ by Wordsworth, ‘A Forest’ by Shelley and a passage from T.L. Peacock. 36. BOB ACRE’S DUEL passage from Sheridan’s The Rivals.
II. Shakespeare Extracts in the The Times Broadsheets, 1915 [The number and title (if any) of the sheet is indicated, together with other extracts printed on the same sheet.]
No. 2 SHAKESPEARE, MILTON AND WORDSWORTH Prints part of the St Crispin’s day speech from Henry V from ‘By Jove, I am not covetous for gold…’ (4.3.24 – 67) as a play extract with speech prefixes; Wordsworth’s sonnet ‘It is not to be thought of that the flood…’ which includes the lines ‘We must be free or die, who speak the tongue /That Shakespeare spake…’; and an extract from Samson Agonistes from line 1268 ‘Oh how comely it is, and how reviving/To the spirits of just men…’. Each extract is headed with the surname of the writer and no other title. No source references are given,
No. 16 SONGS FROM SHAKESPEARE Prints under roman numerals I to IX ‘O Mistress mine’, Under the greenwood tree’, ‘Orpheus with his lute made trees’, ‘Come away, come away, Death’, ‘When that I was and a little tiny boy’, ‘It was a lover and his lass’, ‘When icicles hang by the
426 wall’, ‘Blow, blow, thou winter wind’ and ‘Fear no more the heat o’the sun’. There is no information as to play sources and no speech prefixes.
No. 20 THE MEN IN BUCKRAM Prints part of 1 Henry IV (2.5. 113-286) as a dramatic extract with speech prefixes and stage directions. At the end the play and scene reference is given but the extract is not attributed to Shakespeare.
No. 34 THE CITY AT NIGHT Prints Wordsworth’s ‘Upon Westminster Bridge’ under the title THE POET; a passage from Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus under the title THE PHILOSOPHER and a passage from Much Ado About Nothing under the title THE CONSTABLE (3.3.1- 91) incorporating stage directions and speech prefixes, from ‘Enter Dogberry and Verges with the watch…’.
No. 38 ROMEO AND JULIET Prints the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet (2.1.43–232) as a dramatic extract with stage directions and speech prefixes. Act and scene details are given at the end; the extract is not attributed to Shakespeare.
No. 39 THE ROLL OF HONOUR Prints a long extract from Ruskin’s Modern Painters which begins “I believe the war is at present productive of good more than evil…” and ends “who dares say that one soldier has died in vain?” This is followed by THE MOTHER OF CORIOLANUS which prints Corialanus 1.3.1 –17 as a dramatic extract with full stage directions and speech prefixes. There are no play and scene references and the extract is not attributed to Shakespeare.
No. 55 RECRUITS Prints an extract from Colonel Yule’s Book of Snr Marco Polo followed by part of the Gloucestershire recruiting scene from 2 Henry IV (3.2.91 –288). Play, scene and act references are given but no authorial attribution. No.67 Prints an extract from 3 Henry VI (2.5.1-54) under the title KING HENRY AT TOWTON FIELD with speech prefix. Play, act and scene details are given but no authorial attribution.
No. 87 Prints and extract from Hardy’s Two on a Tower under the title A CHOIR PRACTICE and an untitled extract from The Merchant of Venice (5.1.69 –88).
No. 89 SLEEP Prints an extract from Diaz’s ‘Conquest of New Spain’ under the title ‘From Bernal Diaz’s ‘Conquest of new Spain’, an untitled Sidney sonnet ‘Come, Sleep! O sleep the certain knot of peace…’, an untitled sonnet by Thomas Sackville ‘By him lay heavy sleep, the cousin of death…’ [both attributed] , a passage from 2 Henry IV ( 3.2.4 – 31:‘How many thousand of my poorest subjects…Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,’); an extract ‘from ‘The Friendly Town’ (L.S.)’ under the title VIXI (‘I have lived and I have loved…And sleep worth all the rest of them’) and under the title SANCHO PANZA ON SLEEP ‘from ‘Don Quixote’ – a short passage.
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No. 102 ON HARRIERS Prints a long extract about hare hunting from ‘Essays on Various Subjects’ by J.A. Doyle which refers to a passage in Venus and Adonis (‘the explicit and hare-hunting passage is that of “poore Wat upon a hill” in the Venus and Adonis. The man that wrote that had watched more than one run with thoughtful observation.’) This is followed by five relevant stanzas from Venus and Adonis (lines 679 – 708) with no further source or author information.
No. 113 THE KING’S MAN Prints a long extract from King Lear (2.2.1 – 53) as dramatic extract with speech prefixes and stage direction.
No. 175 THE PROPHESY Prints three passages from the Bible (Isaiah 9, Isaiah 60 and Luke 2, an extract from Milton’s Ode on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity and a small extract from Hamlet, Act 1 scene 1, lines 139 – 141 ‘Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes/Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated/The bird of dawning singeth all nightlong.’ This is not attributed and no source is given.
III. The Shakespeare extracts in the two books The Times Book of Broadsheets, 1928 and A Second Book of Broadsheets, 1929. Extracts as listed in II above. Extracts are attributed in the list of contents at the front of the book and play, act and scene details are given here. When in the main text they are not attributed and are laid out on the page as a discrete poem – the speech prefix forming part of the first line. Book I i. ‘SAINT CRISPIN’S DAY’ (From King Henry V, iv,3)’ Printed with a capitalized speech prefix “KING HENRY. By Jove I am not covetous for gold…That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.” ii. ‘THE MEN IN BUCKRAM (From I Henry IB, ii, 4)’ Book II i. ‘ROMEO AND JULIET (From Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, ii, 2) ii. ‘KING HENRY AT TOWTON (From III King Henry VI, ii,5)’ Printed with italicised speech prefix “King. This battle fares like to the morning’s war…when care, mistrust, and treason waits on him.” iii. ‘SLEEP […] ‘FromShakespeare’s II Henry IV, iii,1’
IV. Shakespeare extracts in The Times Broadsheets (1948) Sheet No. 4 ( p.7-9) A SOLDIER’S WOOING: WILLIAM COBBETT ‘Here William Cobbett (1762-1835), the vigorous political journalist, describes how he met his future wife. He was then serving with the British forces in Canada.’ HENRY THE FIFTH’S WOOING ‘I speak to thee plain soldier…and fairly, I pray thee’ [attributed but no source references] (H5 5.2.150-168). Sheet No. 14 (p.26-28) BORN 1551: DIED 1650 ‘A remarkable portrait of an old gentleman who lived near the New Forest, by his neighbour the first Lord Shaftesbury’;
428 coupled with an extract from As You Like It ‘Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty… Frosty but kindly.’ (AYL 2.3.48-54) On the page published without a title but listed in the contents as ‘Though I look old’ Sheet No.26 (p.49-51) THE POWER OF MUSIC I. Extract from Collected Essays by Sir W.H.Hadow. II. Extract from The Merchant of Venice Shakespeare and play attributed. ‘Lorenzo: How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank…Mark the music’ (5.1.54-88) III ‘The Power of Music’by Pope. ‘By music minds an equal temper know… hear away their rage.’ Sheet No. 38 (p.72-74) SONGS FROM SHAKESPEARE ‘Who is Silvia?’; ‘Tell me, where is fancy bred’; ‘Come unto these yellow sands’; ‘Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more;’ ‘Blow, blow thou winter wind’; ‘Where the bee sucks…’ Each extract is separated by a row of three asterisks – there is no source information. Sheet No. 93 (p.180-182) A POLITICAL FABLE An extract from Coriolanus (1.1.87-156) printed as play text with SPs and introductory SD ‘Scene: a street in Rome; mutinous citizens with staves, clubs and other weapons; Menenius Agrippa with them’. ‘I shall tell you a pretty tale…Of this most wise rebellion, thou go’st foremost. Attributed ‘Shakespeare: Coriolanus’. Sheet No. 117 (p.228-230) DINNER IN THE FOREST Attributed ‘Shakespeare: As You Like It ‘Adam. – Dear Master, I can go no further…Welcome; fall to’ (AYL 2.6.1-17, 2.7.104-172) Sheet No. 121 (p. 236-238) O COWARD CONSCIENCE! Extracts from Richard III 4.3.1-30 and 5.5.10-103 & 131-160. Adds SDs ‘ Scene: Bosworth field. King Richard asleep; enter the ghosts of the two young princes’ and ‘King Richard starts out of his dream’ ‘Followed by editorial short passage from Johnson: ‘Of this play Dr. Johnson wrote: “This is one of the most celebrated of our author’s performances: yet I know not whether it has not happened to him as to others, to be praised most, when praise is not most deserved. That this play has scenes noble in themselves, and very well contrived to strike in the exhibition, cannot be denied. But some parts are trifling, others shocking, and some improbable.’ Sheet No. 144 (p.281-283) A ROYAL CHRISTENING Attributed ‘Shakespeare: Henry VIII’ ( H8 5.5.1-76: ‘Garter.- Heaven, from thy endless goodness…This little one shall make it holiday.’) Adds introductory SD ‘Scene: King Henry VIII’s palace; the christening of the future Queen Elizabeth.’ Sheet No. 184 (p.360-363) THE OLD CLOAK I ‘The winter’s weather it waxeth cold…And I’ll take mine old cloak about me’. An Old Ballard from Percy’s Reliques. II ‘This ballad was known to Shakespeare who used it in Othello’
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Then prints an extract from that play: ‘Iago Some wine, ho! [sings] And let me the cannikin clink…Why, this is a more exquisite song than the other.’ (Oth.2.3.62-91) In the contents the two extracts are listed as ‘THE OLD CLOAK I. AN OLD BALLAD FROM PERCY’S Reliques II. SHAKESPEARE’S USE OF IT IN Othello. Sheet No. 215 (p.422-424) A MISCELLANY OF THE SEA I POLL OF WAPPING STAIRS Charles Dibdin II.KING HARRY’S FLEET AT SEA Shakespeare: King Henry V ‘Suppose that you have seen/The well-appointed king at Hampton pier…due course to Harfleur.’( H5 3.0.3-17) III A SEAMAN OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY From Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales IV EPIGRAM ON SIR FRANCIS DRAKE NB. Contents page lists five Shakespeare extracts including THE NATURE OF AN OATH an extract from Marryat’s Peter Simple. Index is also incorrect in the number of Shakespeare extracts which it lists as 9 [pages 28, 50, 72, 180, 228, 236, 281, 362, 423] whereas there are in fact 10.
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APPENDIX 41. Soundings
Donya Feuer’s stage adaptation of Ted Hughes’s anthology A Choice of Shakespeare’s Verse.
Donya Feuer is an American-born Swedish theatre director and choreographer. In 1976 she came across A Choice of Shakespeare’s Verse (1971). Feuer recalls Hughes’s introduction to the anthology gave her a key to ‘those undefined things [she] did not understand but had felt so strongly’ during earlier theatrical encounters with Shakespeare.15 Inspired by the anthology and using it as her source material she created and directed a theatrical performance in Sweden’s ‘national’ theatre, the Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern in 1978. This was Pejlingar (‘Soundings’) performed by the veteran Swedish actress Karin Kavali. Feuer described ‘Soundings’ as a soliloquy for one actress over seventy, with great dramatic roles in the blood of her performing and personal self, with Ted’s choice of Shakespeare’s verse as the place of departure, his dramaturgical structure a base support calling on her own experiences as the building element16.
The script in Swedish is dated February 1978 and inscribed:
“Soliloquy” for Karin Kavali Text av W. Shakespeare i urval av Ted Hughes och scenisk bearbetning av Donya Feuer.17
[Translation: ‘Soliloquy for Darin Kavli. Text by W. Shakespeare from the selection of Ted Hughes created by Donya Feuer’.]
‘Soundings’ was subsequently taken up by a Dutch director Ben Hurkmans and performed in Rotterdam in September 1980 by a Dutch actress Ank van de Moer. Material relating to this production is held in the British Library’s Hughes Archive and includes two copies of the script in English, one (Add. MS 88918/63) endorsed in Dutch ‘N weversdroom. Tekst William Shakespeare/ Gebaseerd op een selektie van Ted Hughes/ Dramatiseig Donya Feuer/ Nederlands Ben Hurkmans’ the other (Add. MS 88918/64) has a cover sheet inscribed ‘Soundings/ Bottoms Dream’.
15 Donya Feuer, ‘In the Company of Shakespeare and Ted Hughes’ in Nick Gammage ed.,Epic Poise ( London: Faber, 1999), 118-121, 118. 16 Ibid. 17 Script in Kunliga Dramatiska Teatren Library, Stockholm, the librarian kindly supplied me with a copy. 431
With this second script is a letter to Hughes from Ben Hurkmans dated 24 September 1980 incorporating extracts from Dutch newspaper reviews of the performance (apparently translated into English by Hurkmans).There are also posters and photographs of Ank van de Moer on stage in the piece and a theatre programme. This performance went under the title ‘Ank van de Moer speelt Shakespeare’ (Ank van der Moer plays Shakespeare) and the programme acknowledges the earlier performance by Karin Kavali in Stockholm in 1978. There is no indication from the archive material whether this Rotterdam performance was in English or Dutch. However comparison suggests the English version of the script is very close to the original Swedish one. The English script reveals itself as a collage of extracts from Hughes’s Choice; effectively it is a (secondary) anthology from an anthology. The script shows the way in which it was created from the anthology. The only words not taken from the anthology, and which are used to top and tail the performance, are taken from Bottom’s speech in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: ‘When my cue comes, call me | and I will answer ‘ (4.1.199-217) and Peter Quince’s speech in the same play beginning ‘If we offend it is with our good will.’ (5.1.108-117). The script generally takes from the extracts in the order they appear in the anthology. Thus pages 1 to 5 of the script take lines from extracts 1,[1] 2[3], 6 [9], 5[8], 8[1], 3[2] and 10[6] – numbers refer to the 1971 edition of the anthology those in square brackets refer to the 1991 revised edition. Rarely is the entire extract used and lines are frequently reordered and re-grouped and some lines are occasionally reprised. For example lines from Extract 25(36) ‘Now is the winter of our discontent…’ from Richard III (I.i.1-31) appears on pages 12 and 13 of the script as follows
I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion. Cheated of feature by dissembling nature Deform’d, unfinish’d, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable.
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time.
Unless to see my shadow in the sun And descant on mine own deformity.
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
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To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain, And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Now is the winter of our discontent.
This is followed by lines from Extract 19 (28): Sonnet 94 ‘They that have power to hurt and will do none’ broken up into the following segments: lines 1-4, lines 5-12 and lines13-14). Then follows the line ‘Now is the winter of our discontent…’ Another example of the way the extracts are cut and pasted is at pages 55-6, at the end of the piece. Here the lines from Bottom’s and Peter Quince’s speeches are mixed with lines from Hughes’s extracts 168 [206], 179 [217] and 144 [182] – bits of the 168 and 144 having been used already on earlier pages.
If we offend it is with our good will That you should think we come not to offend
- We are bastards all –
But with our good will To show our simple skill That is the true beginning of our end.
- We are such stuff as dreams are made on –
Consider then, we come not in despite We do not come as minding to content you Our true intent is all for your delight.
- and our little life is rounded with a sleep –
We are not here that you should here repent you
No, no, no, no
Our actors are at hand And by their show You shall know All that you are like to know
No, no, no, no
When my cue comes
call me
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and I will answer
I will answer.
With just the script it is hard to imagine the effect of either performance of ‘Soundings’. The newspaper reviews appended to Hurkmans’ letter in the British Library suggest that Feuer successfully created a coherent and moving work in its own right and give some idea of the theatrical piece.
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APPENDIX 42. The performed anthology William: The Conqueror.
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The performers in William: The Conqueror were John Gielgud, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Richard Pasco and Robert Spencer (songs and lute) and the performance was presented jointly by The Trustees of Shakespeare’s Birthplace and the Governors of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Programme:
from ‘To the great Variety of Readers’, from the First Folio, 1623 John Hemminge’s and Henry Condell
from ‘To the memory of … W. Shakespeare’, from the First Folio Leonard Digges
Lute: Alleyn’s Jigge John Johnson
Shakespeare’s birth, from Worthies of England, 1662 Thomas Fuller
Comments on Shakespeare’s family by Thomas Plume (c.1657) and John Aubrey (c.1681)
from The Winter’s Tale, Act 1, scene 2. William Shakespeare
from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 2, scene 1 William Shakespeare
Song: Hark, hark the lark William Shakespeare/Robert Johnson Day-break, from Fantastickes, 1626 Nicholas Breton
from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 4, scene 1 William Shakespeare
Notes on Stratford-upon-Avon by William Camden (c.1610) and John Leland (c.1540)
Early morning, from Fantastickes Nicholas Breton
from Venus and Adonis William Shakespeare
Lute: The English Hunt’s Up John Whitfield
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Shakespeare’s education, from the Life of Mr. William Shakespeare, 1709. Nicholas Rowe
At the grammar school, from Mount Tabor, 1639. R. Willlis from the Life of Mr. William Shakespeare Nicholas Rowe from Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act 3, scene 1 William Shakespeare from the Bishop of Worcester’s Register, 1582
A sonnet William Shakespeare from As You Like It, Act 2, scene 4 William Shakespeare
Song: It was a Lover and his Lass William Shakespeare/Thomas Morley
from Much Ado About Nothing, Act1, scene1 William Shakespeare
Lute: Cinquepace Galliard Anon. from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, scene 1 William Shakespeare
Song: O Mistress Mine William Shakespeare/Thomas Morley
The Players come to town, from Mount Tabor R. Willis from the Borough of Stratford’s Account Book, 1587. from Hamlet, Act 2, scenes 1 and 2 William Shakespeare from Ratseis Ghost Anon. from The Lives of the Poets, 1753 Robert Shields from Hamlet, Act 3, scene 2 William Shakespeare from Hamlet, Act 4, scene 2 William Shakespeare
Lute: Tarlton’s Resurrection John Dowland
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The London theatres in 1599, from Travels Thomas Platter from Henry V, Chorus to Act 1 William Shakespeare from The Anatomie of Abuses, 1583 Philip Stubbes from A Sermon preached at Paul’s Cross, 1578 T. White from a letter of the lord Mayor of London to the Privy Council, 1597
The Excellent Actor, from Characters, 1615 Thomas Overbury
From Richard II, Act IV, scene 1 William Shakespeare
Song: Sorrow, stay John Dowland from Discoveries Ben Jonson from ‘To the Memory of my beloved, the Author Ben Jonson Mr. William Shakespeare’, 1623
INTERVAL
Queen Elizabeth I at Greenwich Palace in 1598, from Travels Paul Hentzer
Lute: The Queen’s Galliard Edward Pearce from Henry IV, part 2, Act 3, scene 1 William Shakespeare from a letter of Sir Walter Cope to Robert Cecil
The Dedication of The Rape of Lucrece, 1594 William Shakespeare
A sonnet William Shakespeare from the Lord Chamberlain’s Account Book, 1594 The Spanish Ambassador at Court
From Twelfth Night, Act 2, scene 4 William Shakespeare
Song: Come away, come away, Death William Shakespeare/Anon.
438 from Pierce Penilesse, 1594 Thomas Nashe from Henry V, Chorus to Act 4 William Shakespeare from Henry V, Act 4, scene 3 William Shakespeare
Song: The Agincourt Song Anon.
Shakespeare and Burbage, from the Diary of John Manningham, 1602
Shakespeare at Oxford, from Collections of Thomas Hearne, 1709.
Song: It fell on a summer’s day Thomas Campion from King Lear William Shakespeare
Song: Though you are young Thomas Campion from Life of Shakespeare, c. 1750 William Oldys from Henry IV, part 2, Act 3, scene 2 William Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s retirement, from the Life of Mr. Nicholas Rowe William Shakespeare
A recollection of New Place, 1767 from Description of England, 1577 William Harrison from The Taming of the Shrew, Act 2, scene 1 William Shakespeare Extracts from Shakespeare’s will, 1616
Lute: Bonny, sweet Robin Anon.
A sonnet William Shakespeare from The Life of Mr. William Shakespeare Nicholas Rowe from As You Like It, Act 2, scene 7 William Shakespeare from The Tempest, Act 5, scene 1 William Shakespeare
A legend about Shakespeare’s papers, from Confessions Samuel Ireland
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Song; When that I was and a little tiny boy William Shakespeare/Traditional
From The Tempest, Act 4, scene 1 William Shakespeare
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APPENDIX 43. Transcript Programme: Shakespeare Tercentenary Celebration, Calais, May 1916.
Page 1. CALAIS CINEMA HUT, No 1 CAMP MAY 2, and 3, 1916
SHAKESPEARE TERCENTENARY CELEBRATION 1616-1916
Under the distinguished patronage of
Colonel J.S. NICHOLSON, C.B. C.M.G., D.S.O., Base Commandant General DITTE, Governor of Calais Lieutenant-General CLOOTEN, Belgian Base Commandant M. Charles MORIEUX, Mayor of Calais
- --0---
In aid of The Star and Garter Home for Disabled Soldiers and Sailors
---0---
Producers: Major L.M. SHAW-PAGE, A.S.C. and 2nd Lieut. C.P. PEARCE, A.S.C. Musical Director: Lieut. F.C.S. CAREY, A.O.D. Hon Secretary and Treasurer: Lieut. A.M. HIND, A.S.C.
---0--- The Hut kindly lent by the Y.M.C.A
Page 2 SCENES FROM “TWELFTH NIGHT” Act I Scene 5 ……………….. Olivia’s House Act II Scene 2 ……………….. A Street Scene 3……………….. Olivia’s House Scene 5 ………………… Olivia’s Garden Act III Parts of Scenes 2 and 4 …………. Olivia’s Garden
Olivia … Miss BETTY HUTCHINSON F.A.N.Y. Maria, Olivia’s woman… Miss CHRISTOBEL NICHOLSON F.A.N.Y Viola … Miss NORMA LOWSON F.A.N.Y. Malvolio, steward to Olivia... Major L.M. SHAW-PAGE Sir Toby Belch, uncle to Olivia Capt. G.T. HEAT Sir Andrew Aguecheek … Lieut. W.J.F. ANDERSON RABY
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Feste, a clown} Lieut. F.C.S. CAREY Fabian } servants to Olivia… Lieut. H.S. MITCHELL
Madrigals for three voices (a) As fair as morn MORLEY (1557-1604) (b) Thou Philomena lost her love WILBYE (fl.598-1614)
Miss CHRISTOBEL NICHOLSON, Mlle U. KREBERG, and Lieut. F.C.S. CAREY
Songs (a) Fain would I change that note HUME (1605) (b) Whither runneth my sweetheart? BARTLETT (1606) (c) On the brow of Richmond Hill PURCELL (1658-95)
Lieut. F.C.S. CAREY
Country Dances (a) Parson’s Farewell}from PLAYFORD’S DANCING MASTER (b) Althea } (1660)
Miss BETTY HUTCHINSON, Miss CHRISTOBEL NICHOLSON Lieut. F.C.S. CAREY, Lieut. C.R.C. MALTBY
Songs (a) When daisies pied (Love’s Labour’s Lost) } (b) Under the greenwood tree (As You Like It) } ARNE (1710-78) (c) Come unto these yellow sands (Tempest) } (d) Full fathom five (Tempest) } PURCELL
Miss CHRISTOBEL NICHOLSON
Canzonets for two voices (a) At break of Morn } MORLEY (b) Sweet nymph, come to thy lover }
Lieut. F.C.S. CAREY, and Major L.M. SHAW-PAGE
Duet It was a lover and his lass (As You Like It) EDWARD GERMAN (Living composer) Miss CHRISTOBEL NICHOLSON, and Lieut. F.C.S. CAREY
Page 3
SCENES FROM “KING HENRY V” Act III Scene 1 France. Before Harfleur Scene 4 … The French King’s Palace Act V Scene 2 France. A Royal Palace
King Henry V Lieut. W.J.F. ANDERSON RABY Charles, King of France Lieut. A.G. JENKINSON
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Duke of Burgundy Lieut. F.C.S. CAREY Isabel, Queen of France Miss BETTY HUTCHINSON Katharine, daughter to Charles Miss MARTHE WEST and Isabel Alice, a lady attending on her Miss NORMA LOWSON
Songs (a) Come away, come away, Death (Twelfth Night) } ROGER QUILTER (b) O Mistress Mine (Twelfth Night) } (Living composer) (c) Blow, blow thou winter wind (As You Like It) }
Part Songs For three voices (a) Orpheus with his lute (Henry VIII) EDWARD GERMAN
Lieut. F.C.S. CAREY, Major L.M. SHAW-PAGE, Lieut. W.J.F. ANDERSON RABY
For four voices (a) Sigh no more, ladies (Much Ado) } STEVENS (b) You spotted snakes (Midsummer-Night’s Dream)} (1757- 1837)
Miss CHRISTOBEL NICHOLSON, Mlle U. KREBERG, Lieut. F.C.S. CAREY Major L.M. SHAW-PAGE
INSTRUMENTAL ACCOMPANIMENT
Piano Miss B d’A Donajowska Violins Miss P.B. WADDELL F.A.N.Y. and Lieut.A.M. Hind Flute and piccolo M. JESUPRET
The staging is an attempt to follow the form in use in Shakespeare’s time.
Costumes and wigs by Clarkson
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APPENDIX 44. This Sceptred Isle: Shakespeare extracts Text Source ‘This England never did, nor never shall…’ KJ 5.7.112-118 ‘Among the soldiers this is muttered, 1H6 1.1.70-1 That here you maintain several factions’ ‘Of England’s coat one half is cut away’ 1H6 1.1.81 ‘Why, knows not Montague that of itself 3H6 4.1.39-45 England is safe, if true within itself.’ ‘Methinks I am a prophet new inspired . . . /This royal throne R2 2.1.31 & 40- of kings …’ 68 ‘Discomfortable cousin, know’st thou not … Weak men must R2 3.2.32-58 fall, for heaven still guards the right.’ ‘How many thousand of my poorest subjects…’ 2H4 3.1.4-31 ‘O! for a Muse of fire, that would ascend…’ H5 1.0.1-31 ‘We are glad the Dauphin is so pleased with us…’ H5 1.2.259-296 ‘Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more…’ H5 3.1.1-34 ‘What’s he that wishes?/ My cousin Westmorland? No, my fair H5 4.3.18-67 cousin:/If we are marked to die …’ ‘Give me another horse! bind up my wounds!...’ R3 5.5.131-160 ‘Yet remember this,/ God and our good cause fight upon our R3 5.5.193-218 side…’ ‘To be thus is nothing;/ But to be safely thus…’ Mac 3.1.49-73 ‘I conjure you, by that which you profess, - …’ Mac 4.1.66-77 ‘Alas! Poor country; /Almost afraid to know itself. …’ Mac 4.3.165- 174 ‘Some holy angel/ Fly to the court of England…’ Mac 3.6.46-50 ‘A show of eight kings; the last with a glass in his hand; Mac 4.1.128- Banquo’s ghost following. 140 MACBETH: Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo…’ ‘MACDUFF: What’s the disease he mean? ...’ Mac 4.3.147- 160 ‘O!, now, for ever/ Farewell this tranquil mind…’ Oth 3.3.353- 362 ‘SICINIUS: Is’t possible that so short a time can alter the Cor 5.4.9-30 condition of a man? …’ ‘O, mother, mother!/ What have you done? …’ Cor 5.3.183- 186 ‘My lord of York, it is better showed with you …’ 2H4 4.1.230- 234 ‘My crown is in my heart, not on my head: …’ 3H6 3.1.62-65
‘The quality of mercy is not strain’d: …’ MV 4.1.181- 199 ‘We are no tyrant, but a Christian king: …’ H5 1.2.241-243 ‘WOLSEY: Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear …’ H8 3.2.429-460 ‘CRANMER: Let me speak, sir, /For heaven now bids me: …’ H8 5.4.14-55 ‘This royal throne of kings, this sceptre isle,/ this earth of R2 2.1.40-41 majesty, this seat of Mars …’
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APPENDIX 45. The Prince’s Choice The selection takes from a total nineteen of Shakespeare’s plays - seven tragedies, five comedies, five histories and two of the late plays - it also uses one of the sonnets. I. Passages used in the book version: Antony and Cleopatra Act 2, scene 2, 198-246 Act 2, scene 5, 10-120 Coriolanus Act 5, scene 3, 22-190 Act 5, scene 4, 1-35 Julius Caesar Act 4, scene 2, 53-66, 120-172 Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 296-312 Act 3, scene 1, 58-90 Macbeth Act 2, scene 1, 33-64 Act 2, scene 2, 1- 73 Act 5, scene 5, 18-27 Othello Act 3, scene 3, 95-261 King Lear Act 3, scene 2, 1-9, 15-24 As You Like It Act 2, scene 7, 139-166 Act 2, scene 1, 1-20 Act 3, scene 2, 11-68 The Merchant of Venice Act 3, scene 1, 54-68 A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act 1, scene 2, 1-103 Act 3, scene 1, 1 -100 Much Ado About Nothing Act 1, scene 1, 29-138 Act 4, scene 1, 258-323 Twelfth Night Act 1, scene 1, 1-15 Act 2, scene 5, 22-172 Henry IV Part 1 Act 2, scene 5, 113-169, 185-283, 379-393, 402-486 Henry IV Part 2 Act 3, scene 1, 4-39 Act 3, scene 2, 1- 50, 80-85,187-216 Henry V Act 4, Prologue, 1-53 Act 4, scene 1, 227-281 Act 4, scene 3, 17-67
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Richard II Act 2, scene 1, 40-68 Act 3, scene 4, 30-67 Richard III Act 1, scene 1, 1-41 The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148-158 The Winter’s Tale Act 3, scene 3, 58-135 Sonnet 60
NB. Passages appear in the same order as the tracks on the audio book (track listing below).
II. Audio Version The selection in the audio version is slightly different. The track listing follows the order of the excerpts in the book with minor cuts and additions. The main omission is the extract from Act IV, scene 1 Much Ado about Nothing (p.63-65).
2 CD set published by Hodder Headline Audio Books 1995. ISBN 1-85998-519-X. Approx. 2 hours playing time. [Also issued as a 4 cassette set ISBN 1-859985-149]
Inlay Card: Follows design of book, same background, and inner border, Prince of Wales’ feathers and detail from the Droueshout engraving.Within the border the title THE PRINCE’S CHOICE takes up approximately half the box (set out as per book cover) beneath this in much smaller capitals is ‘A PERSONAL SELECTION FROM SHAKESPEARE’ across the box and after this in red script ‘Performed by …’ followed by the actors names in alphabetical order ending with HRH The Prince of Wales. Spine reads: THE PRINCE’S CHOICE
Back of the inlay card: THE PRINCE’S CHOICE “I hope this anthology may remind listeners of the delights of Shakespeare and inspire some of them to re-read the plays, or better still to see them again on stage” HRH The Prince of Wales.
‘THE PRINCE’S CHOICE is a collection of Shakespeare’s work performed by an outstanding cast including the Prince of Wales himself. The choice has been divided into categories – Extraordinary People and Exceptional Language, All Sorts and Conditions of Men, Humour, The Darker Side, Public Life and Leadership, The Country, Music and Acting - that reflect many of the Prince’s own interests.’
‘With and introduction by the Prince of Wales, and selected in conjunction with Sir Robert Stephens, one of our finest Shakespearean actors and by Dr.Eric Anderson, Rector of Lincoln College Oxford, this anthology will be treasured by those familiar with Shakespeare as much as by those coming to him for the first time’
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‘The text of the THE PRINCE’S CHOICE is published by Hodder & Stoughton.’
The back of the inlay card also repeats some of the credits found in the inner booklet: executive producers, producer and director, music and technical presentation, place of recording, royalty details, publishers etc.
The CD itself is silver, top half says THE PRINCE’S CHOICE, bottom half contains legal information and Hodder headline Audio Books.
BOOKLET accompanying Audio Book:
8 page booklet: four sheets of A5 paper folded to A6 size pages, supplied with CDs.
P.1 Front cover ‘THE PRINCE’S CHOICE A Personal Selection from Shakespeare with an introduction by HRH The Prince of Wales
P.2 Executive Producer Sir Robert Stephens Produced and Directed by Glyn Dearman Musical Composition and Technical Presentation: Wilfred Acosta Technical Associate Robert Ash Arcadia Productions, PO Box 2122 London W1 1QW Recorded in London and at Highgrove, Gloucestershire between May and October 1995. A royalty from the sale of this audio will be paid to A.G. Carrick Ltd, whose annual net profits are paid to the Prince of Wales Charities Trust. The text of THE PRINCE’S CHOICE is published by Hodder & Stoughton’
Copyright notices
P.3 INTRODUCTION by HRH The Prince of Wales [This is identical to the introduction in the book version.] NB. Generally the Prince’s spoken introductions to each category do not use the same texts as the epigraphs in the book form.
Track listing – the excerpts are in the same order as in the book with one complete omission and some cuts and additions. Music and sound effects are used. << >> indicates spoken on CD “ …” indicates printed in booklet and (3) indicates page reference where text is taken from book version
CD1 Cassette Side 1 Track 1 PROLOGUE Introduction…..HRH The Prince of Wales
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<
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Cassette Side 2 Track 6 CORIOLANUS Act V Scene 4 Menenius … Robert Stephens Sicinius … Charles Kay “The army of Rome’s mortal enemies the Volscians is encamped outside the city, ready to strike at any moment. Its general is Coriolanus, once Rome’s greatest soldier but banished for overweening arrogance by a cabal headed by the Tribunes of the People, Junius Brutus and Sicinius Velutus. Now, faced by the consequences of his policy, a seriously alarmed Sicinius seeks the help of Menenius, once the mentor of the youthful Coriolanus. But the elder statesman can offer no comfort – the vengeance of Martius Coriolanus is implacable”(23) <
Cassette Side 3 Track 8 MACBETH Act II Scene 1 and Scene 2 Macbeth … Robert Stephens Lady Macbeth … Patricia Quinn “It is past midnight. The feast in Macbeth’s castle has broken up and King Duncan has retired to bed, full of praise for the welcome he has received. Macbeth, driven on by Lady Macbeth, has steeled himself to murder the King, but as he awaits her signal, his overwrought mind conjures up the image of a dagger leading him towards Duncan’s chamber.”(33)<
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Shallow … Alec McCowen Silence … Charles Kay Sir John Falstaff … Robert Stephens “Despite his victory at Shrewsbury, an ailing and agitated Henry IV must still deal with rebellion in the north. An army must be levied and Sir JohnFalstaff, the Prince of Wales disreputable boon companion, passes through Gloucestershire recruiting men as he goes. Justice Shallow, one of two Justices of the Peace who have assembled men form whom he came to make his choice, knew Falstaff in his youth when he was studying at the Inns of Court and he boasts to his cousin, Justice Silence, of the madcap exploits which time has greatly exaggerated in his memory.”(44) <
Cassette Side 4 Track 11 RICHARD III Act 1 Scene 1 Richard Gloucester … Antony Sher “The House of York has triumphed on the battlefield of Tewkesbury and Edward IV has been restored to the throne. His younger brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester – hunchbacked, ugly and fitter for violence and stratagem than for the arts of love and peace – is determined to clear the field of all who stand between him and the throne. He has begun by persuading Edward to send their brother Clarence to the tower”(45) NB.Misprint in book for ‘throne’ read ‘tower’] <
450 the forfeit will be a pound of Antonio’s flesh. When several of Antonio’s ships are lost at sea and the payment is becoming due, most people think the Jew will not exact his pound of flesh. Shylock, who has suffered at the hands of Antonio and other Christians for no reason other than he is a Jew, disabuses them.”(51) <
Cassette Side 5
Track 15 HUMOUR <
451
“It is morning. Macduff arrives at the gate of Macbeth’s castle to attend on the King, and has difficulty arousing the porter form his drunken slumber. No-one has yet discovered that King Duncan lies slaughtered in his bed, but ironically the Porter pretends for a few moments that his opening the gates of Hell”(67) <
CD2 Track 1 THE DARKER SIDE Introduction … HRH The Prince of Wales << Music thro’>> <
452 depression which takes all pleasure from the world and paints human existence in sombre hues” (79) Cuts to end on “nor woman neither” Cassette Side 6 Track 4 OTHELLO Act III Scene 3 Othello … Robert Stephens Iago … Robert Lindsay “Furious that he has been passed over in favour of Cassio for the position of Othello’s lieutenant, Iago has engineered a drunken brawl which brings about the disgrace and demotion of his rival. Partly for sheer devilry, partly because he suspects that Othello may have been intimate with his own wife Emilia, Iago sets out to destroy the happiness of Othello’s marriage with Desdemona. Her innocently open-hearted espousal of Cassio’s campaign to win back Othello’s favour provided the perfect opportunity for Iago’s poisonous innuendo” (81) Adds at end Othello’s soliloquy << “This fellow’s of exceeding honesty…when we do quicken”>> Track 5 MACBETH Act V Scene 5 Macbeth … Antony Sher “Cornered by his enemies, who are marching upon Dunsinane Castle under the cover of branches plucked from Birnam Wood, and left completely alone by the death of his conscience-stricken wife, Macbeth reflects at this moment of crisis on the ultimate futility of existence.”(87) <
Cassette Side 7 Track 8 PUBLIC LIFE AND LEADERSHIP Introduction … HRH The Prince of Wales << Music>> Largely taken from pages 2-3 generalising at the end instead of referring to particular jobs << “All of us …[omits reference to Branagh] … [omits extract] Of course the
453 soliloquy ‘Upon the King’ from Henry V is not just about…the responsibilities and stresses of public life and leadership”>> Track 9 HENRY V Act III Prologue Chorus … Alec McCowen “The vastly superior French hos thas shadowed Henry V’s invading army on its weary trek through Normandy and has now intercepted it at Agincourt. Chorus sets the scene on the eve of battle as Henry makes a tour of his bedraggled and demoralised troops – camped within earshot of the carousing, confident French – in an attempt to raise their spirits before a day which few of the English soldiers believe they will survive”(95) << Music Drum beat and drum roll>> Track 10 HENRY V Act IV Scene 3 Westmoreland … Alex Lowe Henry V … Toby Stephens “Drawn up for battle, the armies now face each other. The French outnumber the English by five to one and in the face of such unequal odds, henry’s nobles wish that reinforcements could somehow be spirited from England. But the King rejoices in their puny numbers which offer greater glory to those who survive the day”(97) <
454
“It is the early hours of the morning f Agincourt and the King steals through the camp in disguise to talk openly to the common soldiers and gauge their state of mind. Facing what they assume to be certain death, the men reflect bitterly that they are likely to be the hapless victims of the King’s quarrel, inevitable sacrifices to his ambitions. Somewhat chastened, Henry ponders on the futility of pomp and ceremony and envies the reassuringly tranquil everyday life of even his meanest subjects.”(109)
Cassette Side 8
Track 14 THE COUNTRY Introduction …HRH The Prince of Wales <
455
Gardener John Sessions Man Nickolas Grace Track 18 MUSIC AND ACTING Introduction … HRH The Prince of Wales << Music>> <
456 quickly and mysteriously as it took shape – an apt metaphor for life and art. This speech is sometimes taken to be Shakespeare’s own farewell to the stage.”(137) <
On page 8 (back page of booklet) is printed the following interview with Robert Stephens: “The Prince of Wales came to see me playing Falstaff and he told me afterwards how much he regretted never having the time to sit down and read the plays. So the idea struck me that I could record some scenes from Shakespeare privately and send a tape to him for Christmas. For various reasons I wasn’t able to do anything about it but when I was discussing my autobiography with Hodder, I mentioned the Shakespeare ideas to them and they were very keen to turn the project into an audio book. The Prince agreed and so I spent a weekend with Eric Anderson, now Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, but once the Prince’s English master. We worked through the plays with Eric guiding me towards the scenes and characters which His Royal Highness most enjoyed and we divided them all into various categories. On balance, I think we’ve made a very good choice and given a well balanced flavour of the plays – tragical – comical – historical –pastoral as Polonius says.
I then sat down with the director Glyn Dearman and we cast the various roles. I was very keen to work with my son Toby and when word got round everybody wanted to be in it. There were even people ringing from abroad to offer their services.
I suppose that our greatest delight has been to persuade Prince Charles to play Hal to my Falstaff in one of the scenes from Henry IV Part One. I had performed a bit of Falstaff at a reception at Buckingham Palace and when I sat next to the prince at dinner, I asked him why he hadn’t joined me for the excerpt and so I was delighted that he felt able to act a bit this time.
It’s been a marvellous experience to record these pieces – the greatest fun. Some parts, such as Falstaff and King Lear I had played quite recently but others such as Macbeth had always passed me by although I’d always wanted to have a go. The joy of audio, of course, is that you don’t have to learn the lines or worry about the make-up or costume.”
SIR ROBERT STEPHENS
NB. In the audio book Robert Stephens plays Jaques, Menenius, Macbeth, Shylock, Sir Toby Belch, Hamlet, King Lear, Falstaff, Bottom and Prospero; Toby plays Coriolanus, Hamlet, Henry IV, Henry V and Poins. Other leading (male) parts in the audio book are given to Alan Bates (Enobarbus), Antony Sher (Richard III and Macbeth), Paul Eddington (Cassius), William Hurt (Benedick), Richard Briers (Malvolio), Alec McCowan (Prologue to Henry V), John Gielgud (John of Gaunt), John Sessions (Gardener in Richard II).
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APPENDIX 46. A Choice of Shakespeare’s Verse
I. Editions.
A Choice of Shakespeare’s Verse (London: Faber, 1971).
With Fairest Flowers While Summer Lasts: poems from Shakespeare edited and introduced by Ted Hughes (Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1971). US.
The Essential Shakespeare, (Hopewell NJ: Ecco Press, 1991). US.
Revised edition A Choice of Shakespeare’s Verse¸ (London: Faber, 1991).
William Shakespeare: Poetry selected by Ted Hughes, Faber’s ‘Poet to Poet’ series (London: Faber 2000)
II. Details of revisions to original 1971 edition of A Choice of Shakespeare’s Verse in the 1991 editions.
The publisher’s blurb on the 2007 paperback edition of Choice draws attention to the revisions: For this new edition, first published in 1971, Ted Hughes augmented his original selection of Shakespeare’s poems and dramatic speeches and completely rewrote his accompanying essay, intending to restore to the common reader much of what in Shakespeare, was instinctively available to the audience of his day, and to show how Shakespeare’s language unites in its sinews and substance the full range of Elizabethan preoccupations: philosophical and social.
The 1991 revised version was in preparation when Hughes was also working on Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being. The 1991 version of Choice has a total of 218 extracts (the 1971 version has 180). It adds thirty-nine passages, mainly from the Sonnets and omits one of the 1971 extracts. Additions: Sonnets 8, 62, 18, 12, 64, 60, 85, 74, 35, 25, 86, 90, 89, 102, 99, 108, 105, 91,125, 119, 124, 121, 132, 141, 144, 137, 138, 148, 152, 151. The Two Gentlemen of Verona: 4.4.1-38; As You Like It 5.4.68-101; Sir Thomas More sc.6 82-97, 134-155; The Merry Wives of Windsor 3.5.88-113; All’s Well That Ends Well 1.2.24-48, 52-67; Othello 2.1.127-163; Othello 4.3.85-102; Hamlet 3.3.36-72; Hamlet 3.2.1-14, 16-35. Omission: Lear 3.4.78-94.
The introduction to the 1971 and 1991 versions are quite different in format. As in 1971, the 1991 UK anthology splits Hughes’ comments between a short introduction 458 and a longer note at the end of the book whereas the US anthology combines these in one long introduction. Thus the introduction to the 1991 Choice is the same as the first two and half pages (pages 3-5) of the introduction to The Essential Shakespeare. The note at the end of the 1991 version of Choice is a redraft of the remainder of his introduction to The Essential Shakespeare. There are other more minor variations between the 1971 and 1991 versions: the extracts in the 1971 version are divided in to three sections: they are not so divided in 1991. There is no dedication in the 1971 anthology whereas the 1991 book is dedicated to Roy Davids. III. Distribution of extracts in A Choice of Shakespeare’s Verse 1971 and 1991. * Indicates additions or omissions 1971 1991 The Two Gentlemen of Verona 2 3* The Taming of the Shrew 1 1 1 Henry VI 0 0 2 Henry VI 0 0 3 Henry VI 1 1 Titus Andronicus 0 0 Richard III 2 2 Edward III 0 0 The Comedy of Errors 0 0 Love’s Labour’s Lost 4 4 Richard II 3 3 Romeo and Juliet 3 3 A Midsummer Night’s Dream 3 3 King John 2 2 The Merchant of Venice 3 3 1 Henry IV 3 3 2 Henry IV 3 3 The Merry Wives of Windsor 0 1* Much Ado About Nothing 0 0 Henry V 7 7 Julius Caesar 4 4 As You Like It 5 6* Hamlet 11 13* Twelfth Night 4 4 Troilus and Cressida 12 12 Sir Thomas More 0 1 Measure for Measure 5 5 Othello 11 13* King Lear 17 16* Timon of Athens 8 8 Macbeth 14 14 Anthony and Cleopatra 4 4 All’s Well That Ends Well 1 1 Pericles 2 2 Coriolanus 6 6 The Winter’s Tale 5 5 Cymbeline 7 7
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The Tempest 9 9 Henry VIII 0 0 Two Noble Kinsmen 0 1* Sonnets 15 45* Venus and Adonis 0 0 Lucrece 1 1 The Passionate Pilgrim 1 1 A Lover’s Complaint 0 0 The Phoenix and the Turtle 1 1
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IV. Marginalia in Leonard Baskin’s copy of Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being [BL Shelfmark Hughes 76] On the title page which is simply printed ‘Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being’ Hughes has added ‘by Ted Hughes’.
Transcribed below are Hughes’ handwritten notes on the inside of the cover and on first fly leaf: For Lisa and Leonard Directions for use: (a)Read Shakespeare’s long poems, sonnets and plays two or three times. (b)Learn the passages printed in the Eccho Press selected Shakespeare. (c)Fix your wits on the myth as a dramatic schema – a basic plot schema. (d)When it becomes the Equation keep your wit fixed on how it operates as a plot schema. (e)Let everything else float in the background of the Equation’s role as a plot schema. (f)From the first page make a distinction between the mythic poet (the one who works the schema) (and the one I’m writing about) and the Shakespeare the [Here a long arrow takes the reader back to the inside cover]
realistic poet (who invents the characters, and who everybody else writes about).
(g)Hang on to that distinction right the way through to the last page.
(h)Read the book as a Court Case between the rational puritan (the criminal in the dock, the tragic hero) and everything he rejects (the plaintiff, the howling woman).
[Here TH has drawn a sketch of a large boar which he has labelled ‘Francis’ and a small figure (male) which he has labelled ‘Will’]
with love from Ted 29th June 1992.
461
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. Anthologies:
Adams, Joseph Quincy, The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare. Reproduced in facsimile from the unique copy in the Folger Shakespeare Library, with an Introduction by Joseph Quincy Adams, ed., Joseph Quincy Adams (New York; London, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1939).
Agate, James, Speak for England; an anthology of prose and poetry for the forces (London: Hutchinson, 1939).
Allingham, William, [‘Giraldus’], Nightingale Valley. A collection, including a great number of the choicest lyrics and short poems in the English Language (London: Bell and Daldy, 1860).
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Anderson, Robert, A Complete Edition of the Poets of Great Britain, 14 vols. (London: J. & A. Arch, 1793-5).
Anon., Acteon & Diana: With A Pastoral Storie of the Nimph Oenone: followed by the several Conceited Humours of Bumpkin the Huntsman. Hobbinal the Shepherd. Singing Simpkin and John Swabber the Seaman. By Rob. Cox. Acted at the Red Bull with great applause. The second Edition, with the Addition of Simpleton the Smith, not before extant. (London, 1656).
Anon., Bel-vedere, Or The Garden of the Muses (London, 1600).
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Anon., Birthday Chimes. A Text-Book of Choice Extracts from the Works of William Shakespeare for Every Day in the Year (Edinburgh: W.P. Nimmo, Hay & Mitchell, 1886).
Anon., Shakespeare in Love. The Love Poetry of William Shakespeare (London: Faber & Faber, 1999).
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462
Anon., Englands Helicon (London, 1600).
Anon., Englands Helicon. Or The Muses Harmony (London, 1614).
Anon., Englands Parnassus: The choysest Flowers of our Moderne Poets, with their poeticall comparisons.Descriptions of Bewties, Personages, Castles, Pallaces, Mountaines, Groues, Seas,/Springs, Riuers, &c. Whereunto are annexed other various discourses,/both pleasaunt and profitable ( London, 1600).
Anon., Pearls of Shakespeare. A Collection of the Most Brilliant Passages found in his Plays (London: Cassell, Petter & Galpin, 1860).
Anon., Poems of the Great War (London: Chatto & Windus, 1914).
Anon., Shakespeare Tercentenary Observance in Schools and other institutions (London: printed by Geo. W. Jones for the Tercentenary Committee, 1916).
Anon., Shakspearian Gems. Six illustrated designs suitable for Christmas and New Year’s Greetings, or for presentation (London, 1878).
Anon., Songs and Sonnets for England in War Time: being a collection of lyrics by various authors inspired by the Great War (London: John Lane, 1914).
Anon., The Bard’s Guide to Abuses and Affronts (Philadelphia; London: Running Press, 2001).
Anon., The Bard of Avon Birthday Text-book. Compiled from Shakespeare’s Plays and Poems (London: Routledge & Sons, 1880).
Anon., The Beauties of Poetry Display’d Containing Observations on the different Species of Poetry and the Rules of English Versification. Exemplified by a large Collection of beautiful Passages, Similes and Descriptions From the Writings of Addison, Akinside … and other Celebrated poets, 2 vols. (London; Dublin, 1757).
Anon., The Beauties of Shakespeare Selected from his Plays and Poems (London: Kearsley, 1783).
The Beauties of Shakespeare, Selected from his works. To which are added the principal scene in the same author (London: Kearsley, nd. ?1791). [Second edition The Beauties of Shakespeare Selected from his plays and poems].
Anon., The merry conceited humours of Bottom the weaver. As it hath often been publikely acted by some of his majesties comedians, and lately, privately, presented, by several apprentices for their harmless recreation, with great applause. (London, 1661).
463
Anon., The New Spouter’s Companion, or, a choice collection of prologues and epilogues: being a complete theatrical remembrance, and universal key to theatrical knowledge (London, 1790).
Anon., The Passionate Pilgrim [? London 1598/1599 - Title page missing].
Anon., The Passionate Pilgrime/By W. Shakespeare (London, 1599).
Anon., The Passionate Pilgrim or Certaine Amorous Sonnets, betweene Venus and Adonis , newly corrected and aug-mented.By W. Shakespere. The Third edition.Where-unto is newly added two Loue Epistles, the first from Paris to Hellen, and/Hellens answere backe/againe to Paris (London, 1612).
Anon., The Sentimental Spouter: or, Young Actor’s Companion; containing I. A treatise on Oratory in general and theatrical requirements in particular…II. A collection of the most celebrated scenes, speeches, and soliloquies, selected from the most admired tragedies and comedies… (London, 1774).
Anon., The Young Spouter (London, 1790).
Anon., The Shakespeare Birthday Text Book (Ernest Nister, ?1898).
Anon.,The Wits, or, Sport upon Sport. In Select pieces of Drollery, Digested into Scenes by way of Dialogue. Together with Variety of Humours of several Nations, fitted for the pleasure and content of all Persons, either in Court, City, Country, or Camp. The like never before Published, Part I. (London, 1662).
Anon., The Wits, or, Sport upon Sport. In Selected pieces of Drollery, digested into Scenes by way of dialogue. Together with Variety of Humours of several nations, fitted for the pleasure and content of all persons, either in Court, City, country, or Camp. The like never before Published, Part I. (London, 1672).
Anon., The Wits, or, sport upon Sport. Being a Curious Collection of several Drols and Farces, Presented and Shewn For the Merriment and Delight of Wise Men, and the Ignorant: As they have been sundry times Acted in Publique, and Private, In London at Bartholomew } Faires. In the Countrey at other } In Halls and Taverns, On several Mountebancks Stages, At Charing Cross, Lincolns-Inn-Fields,and other places- By Several Stroleing Players, Fools and Fidlers, And the Mountebancks Zanies. With loud Laughter and great Applause (London, 1673).
Anon., Thesaurus Dramaticus Containing all the Celebrated Passages, Soliloquies, similes, Descriptions, and other poetical beauties in the Body of English Plays, Ancient and Modern., digested under Proper Topics…(London, 1724).
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Anon.,The Beauties of the English Stage consisting of the most affecting and sentimental passages …in the English plays, ancient and modern…, 3 vols. (London, 1756). [Second edition Thesaurus Dramaticus].
Anon.,The Beauties of the English Drama. Consisting of the most celebrated passages …with a copious index to the subjects, 4 vols. (London, 1777). [Third edition Thesaurus Dramaticus].
Arber, Edward, ed., The Shakespeare Anthology (London: Henry Froude, 1899).
Armstrong, Jane, ed., The Arden Shakespeare Book of Quotations on Love (London: Thomson Learning, 2001). [The other books in the series are quotations on ‘Life’, ‘Nature’, ‘The Seven Ages of Man’, ‘Death’ and ‘from Songs and Sonnets’.]
Arnold, Cecil, An Index to Shakespearian Thought: a collection of passages from the plays and poems of Shakespeare (London: Bickers & Son, 1880).
Askew, Fred., Shakespeare Tercentenary Souvenir. England’s Thoughts in Shakespeare’s Words (Lowestoft: Flood & Sons Ltd., 1916).
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Baker, Kenneth, The Faber Book of War Poetry (London: Faber & Faber, 1996).
BBC, Poetry Please! 100 Popular Poems from the BBC Radio4 Programme (London: Dent/BBC, 1985).
BBC, The Nation’s Favourite Poems (London: BBC, 1996). [Available as an audiobook The Nation’s Favourite Poems, BBC Radio Collection, 1996, (Barcode 5011755188948). The anthology also formed the basis of a BBC 2 television broadcast on 12 October 1995.VHS tape of this available in the British Library, Shelfmark V3590/2.]
Beckett, Andrew, A Concordance to Shakespeare: suited to all the editions, in which distinguished and parallel passages in the plays of that justly admired writer are methodically arranged. To which are added, three hundred notes and illustrations (London: G.G.J. & J. Robinson, 1787).
Beeching, Henry Charles, A Paradise of English Poetry, 2 vols. (London: Percival & Co., 1893).
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Brown, James, Bible Truths with Shakspearean Parallels, with selections from Scripture Moral, Doctrinal and Perceptual, with Passages Illustrative of the Text from the writings of Shakspeare (London: Whittaker & Co., 1862).
Bysshe, Edward, The Art of English Poetry: containing I rules for making verses. II A dictionary of rhymes. III A Collection of the most natural, agreeable, and noble thoughts … that are to be found in the best English poets (London, 1702).
Bysshe, Edward, The Art of English Poetry. Containing I Rules for making verses II A Collection of the most natural agreeable and sublime thoughts, viz. Allusions, similes, Descriptions and characters of Persons and things that are able to be found in the best English poets III A dictionary of rhymes, 2 vols. (London, 1718). [Sixth Edition, corrected and enlarged].
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Chester, Robert, Loves Martyr or, Rosalins Complaint Allegorically shadowing the truth of Loue, in the constant Fate of the Phoenix and Turtle. A poeme enterlaced with much varietie and rarietie; now first translated out of the venerable Italian Torquato/ Cæliano, by Robert Chester. With the true legend of famous King Arthur, the last of the nine Worthies,being the first Essay of a new Brytish Poet: collected out of diuerse Authenticall Records. To these are added some new compositions, of seuerall modern Writers whose names are subscribed to their seuerall works, vpon the first Subiect: viz. The Phoenix and Turtle. (London, 1601).
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Chester, Robert, The Anuals of great Brittaine. Or, A Most Excellent Monument, wherein may be seene all the antiquities of this King-dome, to the satisfaction both of the Vniuersities, or any other place stir-red with Emulation of long continuance. Excellently figured out in a worthy Poem. (London, 1611). [Second edition Loves Martyr].
Colmer, Francis, Shakespeare in Time of War: excerpts from the plays arranged with topical allusion by Francis Colmer (London: Smith Elder & Co., 1916).
Cotgrave, John, The English Treasury of Wit and Language Collected Out of the most, and best of our English Drammatick Poems; Methodically digested into Common Places For Generall Use (London, 1655).
Cotgrave, John, Wits Interpreter, the English Parnassus. Or a sure guide to those admirable accomplishments that compleat our English gentry in the most acceptable qualifications of discourse, or writing in which briefly the whole mystery of those pleasing witchcrafts of eloquence and love are made easie …: as also an alphabeticall table of the first devisers of sciences and other curiosities, all which are collected with industry and care for the benefit and delight of those hat love ingenious enterprises (London: for N. Brooke, 1655).
Cowden Clarke, Mary, The Complete Concordance to Shakespeare: being a verbal index to all the passages in the dramatic works of the poet (London, C. Knight & Co., 1845).
Cowden Clarke, Mary, Shakespeare Proverbs: or the Wise Saws of our Wisest Poet collected into a Modern Instance (London: Chapman & Hall, 1848).
Crawford, Charles, Englands Parnassus. Compiled by Robert Allott,1600. Edited from the original text in the Bodleian Library and compared with the two copies in the British Museum by Charles Crawford. With an introduction, noted, tables and indexes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913).
Croft, J.A.[Anon.], A Select Collection of the Beauties of Shakespeare (York, 1792).
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Dodd, William, The Beauties of Shakespear: regularly selected from each play. With a general index, digesting them under proper heads. Illustrated with explanatory notes, and similar passages from ancient and modern authors. By William Dodd B.A. Late of Clare-Hall Cambridge, 2 vols, (London, 1752).
Dodd, William, The Beauties of Shakespear: regularly selected from each play. With a general index, digesting them under proper heads. Illustrated with explanatory notes, and similar passages from ancient and modern authors. By William Dodd B.A. Late of Clare- Hall Cambridge, The Second Edition with Additions, 2 vols. (London: T.Waller,1757).
Dodd, William, The Beauties of Shakespear: regularly selected from each play. With a general index, digesting them under proper heads. Illustrated with explanatory notes, and similar passages from ancient and modern authors.Third Edition with Additions, 2 vols. (Dublin, 1773).
Dodd, William, The Beauties of Shakespear: regularly selected from each play. With a general index, digesting them under proper heads. Illustrated with explanatory notes, and similar passages from ancient and modern authors. The third edition with large additions and the author’s last corrections, 3 vols. (London: J Macgowan, 1780).
Dodd, William, The Beauties of Shakespear: regularly selected from each play. With a general index, digesting them under proper heads. Illustrated with explanatory notes, and similar passages from ancient and modern authors, 3 vols. (London, 1780).
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Eaton, T.R., Shakespeare and the Bible: showing how much the great dramatist was indebted to Holy writ for his profound knowledge of human nature (Blackwood, nd.) [1860].
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Dowden, Edward, ed., The Passionate Pilgrim (by Shakspere, Marlowe, Barnfield, Griffin, and other writers unknown. The First Quarto, 1599, a facsimile in photo-lithography by W. Griggs … with an introduction by E. Dowden (London: W. Griggs, 1883).
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Rosenbaum, Ron, The Shakespeare Wars (New York: Random House, 2006).
Rozmovits, Linda, Shakespeare and the Politics of Culture in late Victorian England (Baltimore; London: John Hopkins University Press, 1998).
Rumbold, Kate, ‘“All the men and women merely players”: Quoting Shakespeare in the mid-Eighteenth Century Novel’, PhD Thesis, University of Oxford, 2007.
Rumbold, Kate, ‘Shakespeare Anthologized’ in The Edinburgh Companion to Shakespeare and the Arts, eds. Mark Thornton Burnett, Adrian Streete and Ramona Wray (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), 88-105.
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Sambrook, James, ‘Gildon, Charles’ in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online, www.oxforddnb.com .
Schneider, Ralf, ‘Of Love, Cats and Football’ in Anthologies of British Poetry. Critical Perspectives from Literary and Cultural Studies, eds. Barbara Korte, Ralf Schnedier and Stefanie Lethbridge (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000), 289-307.
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Sparks of Living Fire, 24 May 2009, Programme. [Part of the‘Read Not Dead’ series of staged readings. Copy available in Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre Library. Audio recording of Sparks of Living Fire may also be heard here, by arrangement with the librarian.]
Shapiro, James, 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (London: Faber & Faber, 2005).
Shrank, Kathy, ‘Reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets: John Benson and the 1640 Poems’, Shakespeare, 5.3 (2009), 271-291.
Sillars, Stuart, The Illustrated Shakespeare 1709-1875 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
Simons, John, ‘The Times Broadsheets: A Canon for the Front’, Literature and History, 11.2 (2002), 39-51.
Smyth, Adam, Profit and Delight: Printed Miscellanies in England, 1640-1682 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004).
Sorelius, Gunnar, ‘An unknown Shakespearian Commonplace Book’, The Library, 5th series, vol. xxvii (1973), 294-308.
Stallybrass, Peter and Roger Chartier, ‘Reading and Authorship: The Circulation of Shakespeare 1590-1619’ in A Concise Companion to Shakespeare and the Text, ed. Andrew Murphy (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007).
Stanford, Donald E., ed., The Letters of Robert Bridges (London; Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1984).
Stern, Tiffany, Documents of Performance in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
Stevenson, Anna. ‘Why Palgrave Lives’, Victorian Poetry, 37.2 (1999), 211-214.
Sutcliffe, Peter, The Oxford University Press: An Informal History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978).
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Sutcliffe, Tom, ‘When not using Shakespeare as a soothing hand on the brow, the Prince employs him as a spiritual bicycle pump, a supplier of inflated aspiration and fine language that will lift us above ourselves’, The Independent Newspaper, 4 November 1995, 2.
Tayor, Gary, Re-Inventing Shakespeare. A Cultural History from the Restoration to the Present (London: The Hogarth Press, 1990).
Taylor, Gary, ‘Brush up your Shakespeare’, The New York Times Book Review, 22 July 1990, 28.
Taylor, Gary, ‘Our Other Shakespeare’, Around the Globe, 38 (2008), 30-31.
The Era Newspaper, Review of Frank Benson’s Shakespeare’s War-Cry, 17 January 1917, 14.
The Stage Newspaper, Review of Wilson Knight’s This Sceptred Isle at the Westminster Theatre, 24 July 1941, 4.
The Times Newspaper: ‘Literature for the Trenches/ A New Method/ “The Times” Series of Broadsheets/ Full List Tomorrow’, The Times, 30 August 1915, p.7, column G.
The Times Newspaper ‘Reading for the Trenches/Literature in “Broadsheets”/ A Penny a Set’, The Times, 31 August 1915, p.7 column E.
The Times Newspaper ‘Britain’s Destiny and Duty/ Declaration by Authors’, The Times, 18 September, p. 3, column A.
Thomas, Edward, ‘Anthologies and Reprints’ [Review], Poetry and Drama , 2.4 (December 1914), 384-386.
Thomas, Edward, ‘England’ in The Last Sheaf. Essays by Edward Thomas (London: Jonathan Cape, 1928), 91-111.
Thomas, Edward, ‘This England’ in The Last Sheaf. Essays by Edward Thomas (London: Jonathan Cape, 1928), 215-221.
Thomas, Edward, ‘War Poetry’, Poetry and Drama, 2.4 (December 1914), 342- 345.
Thomas, Max W., ‘Eschewing Credit: Heywood, Shakespeare and Plagiarism before Copyright’, New Literary History, 31 (2000), 277-293.
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Thomas, Max W., ‘Reading and Writing the Renaissance Commonplace Book: A Question of Authorship?’ in The Construction of Authorship, Textual Appropriation in Law and Literature, eds. Martha Woodmansee and Peter Jaszi (Durham; London: Duke University Press, 1994), 401-415.
Thompson, John, Illustrations of Shakespeare; comprised in Two hundred and Thirty Vignette Engravings by Thompson from designs by Thurston… (London: Sherwood, Gilbert and Piper, 1825).
Tianhu, Hao, ‘Hesperides,or the Muses Garden and its Manuscript history’, The Library, 7th series, vol. 10 (2009), 372-404.
Trewin, J.C., Benson and the Bensonians (London: Berrie & Rockcliff, 1960).
Underwood, R.A., Shakespeare’s ‘The Phoenix and Turtle’: a survey of scholarship ( Saltzburg: Institut für Englische Sprache und Literatur, Universität of Salzburg, 1974).
Van Dynes, Susan R., Revising Life: The Ariel Poems of Sylvia Plath (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993).
Vickers, Brian, Shakespeare, ‘A Lovers Complaint’ and John Davies of Hereford (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
Wall, Wendy, The Imprint of Gender: Authorship and Publication in the English Renaissance (Ithaca NY; London: Cornell University Press, 1993).
Wells, Stanley, ‘A new early reader of Shakespeare’ in Shakespeare’s Book: Essays in Reading, Writing and Reception, eds. Richard Meek, Jane Rickard and Richard Wilson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008), 233-240.
Werstine, Paul, ‘Shakespeare Verbatim’ [Review], Shakespeare Quarterly 45.2 (1994), 231-234.
Willoughby, Edwin Eliott, ‘A Deadly Edition of Shakespeare’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 5.4 (1954), 351-357.
Wilson Knight, G., The Olive and the Sword (London: Oxford University Press, 1944).
Wilson Knight, G., The Sovereign Flower (London: Methuen, 1958).
Wimsatt, W.K. Dr. Johnson on Shakespeare (Harmondsworth : Penguin, 1969).
Woudhuysen, Henry, ‘The Foundations of Shakespeare’s Text’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 125 (2004), 69-100.
Wright, Celeste Turner, ‘Antony Munday and the Bodenham Miscellanies’, Philological Quarterly, 40.4 (1961), 449-461.
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Websites
NB. The following websites were all extant and accessible on 1 September 2013. Websites referred to that have changed, moved location or ceased to exist prior to that date are detailed in the relevant footnote and the date accessed indicated there. emc.eserver.org Early Modern Culture online journal. https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/25947 Megan Jane Nelson’s PhD Thesis ‘Francis Turner and the Golden Treasury’, 19 5, University of British Columbia. www.archive.org/stream/nightingalevalley00alli#page/n5/mode/2up Text of the 1858 edition of Chambers Cyclopedia of English Literature. www.bbc.co.uk/politics97/diana/panorama/html Transcript of Martin Bashir’s BBC1 ‘Panorama’ interview with the Princess of Wales, 20 November 1995. www.books.google.com/books?id=T5FBAAAYAAJ&printsec Preface to the 1858 edition of Chambers Cyclopedia of English Literature. www.archive.org/stream/nightingalevalley00alli Nightingale Valley ed. Henry Allingham, 2nd ed.( London, Bell & Daldy, 1862) www.digitalmiscellaniesindex.org Eighteenth-century poetry miscellanies database. www.iloveshakespeare.com Details of Will Sutton’s one-man Sonnet performance. www.jleonard.net/thesis.html John Leonard’s PhD Thesis ‘Lyric and Modernity’, 1995, University of Queensland. www.magneticpoetry.com/product/shakespeare Website for Magnetic Poetry company. www.oed.com The Oxford English Dictionary Online www.ukcatalogue.oup.com Oxford University Press’ website for publicity regarding The Oxford Book of English Verse. www.oxforddnb.com The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online. www.princes-ti.org.uk Website of The Prince’s Teaching Institute.
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www.roydavids.com Roy Davids’ website containing belated defence of Ted Hughes against a deemed attack by Hugh Morpurgo in 2001 in the magazine Arrete. www.shakespeare-online.com/quotes Online Shakespeare anthology. www.shakespeareswords.com/Glossary Online glossary created by David Crystal and Ben Crystal. http://stanzapoetry.org/stanza06_archive/lecture.htm Neil Astley lecture ‘Bile, Guile and Dangerous to Poetry. www.sophisticated-games.com Website of the manufacturers of ‘The Bard Game’. www.touchpress.com/titles Touch Press’ website for details of iPad app ‘Shakespeare’s sonnets for iPad’ performed by actors. www.videojug.com/interview/poetry-publishing-and-editing-2 Interview with Michael Rosen on Poetry Publishing. www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqOrZItROxs Online discussion in 2009 ,‘Understanding Shakespeare’s Sonnets’, between Stanley Wells, Jonathan Bate and Paul Edmonson, under the auspices of The University of Warwick and The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
III. Editions of Shakespeare referred to:
(i) Complete Works:
Complete Works: The RSC Shakespeare, eds. Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2207).
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, eds. Richard Proudfoot, Ann Thomson and David Kastan (Walton-on-Thames:Nelson,1998).
The Oxford Shakespeare The Complete Works, 2nd edn, eds. John Jowett, William Montgomery, Gary Taylor and Stanley Wells, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005).
The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare, in ten volumes…, 10 vols., ed. Edmund Malone, Edmund (London, 1790).
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The Works of Shakespear in eight volumes. The genuine text (collated with all the former editions, and then corrected and emended) is here settled: Being restored from the blunders of the first editors, and the interpolations of the last two; with a comment and notes, critical and explanatory, ed. William, Warbuton (London: J. and P. Knapton et al., 1747).
The Works of Shakespear. In six volumes. Collated and corrected by the former editions, by Mr. Pope, ed. Alexander Pope (London: Jacob Tonson, 1725).
The Works of Shakespear.. In which the beauties observed by Pope, Warburton and Dodd are pointed out. Together with the author’s life: a glossary; copious indexes; and a list of the various readings, 8 vols. (Edinburgh, 1753).
(ii) Individual works:
Edward III, The New Cambridge Shakespeare, ed. Giorgio Melchiori (Cambridge: CUP, 1998).
Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Arden Shakespeare, Second Series, ed. Richard David (London: Methuen, 1956).
Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series, ed. H.R. Woudhuysen (Walton-on-Thames: Thomas Nelson &sons Ltd., 1998).
Malone, Edmund, ed., Supplement to the edition of Shakespeare’s plays published in 1778 by S. Johnson and G. Steevens…, 2 vols. (London, 1780).
Poems, The New Cambridge Shakespeare, ed. John Roe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
Shakespeare’s Poems, The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series, eds. Katharine Duncan- Jones and H.R. Woudhuysen (London: Thomson Learning, 2007).
Shakespeare’s Sonnets, The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series, ed., Katharine, Duncan-Jones (London: Thomson Learning, 2003).
Sonnets and Other Poems, The RSC Shakespeare, ed., Eric Rasmussen (Basingstoke: Macmillan,2009).
The Complete Poems and Sonnets, The Oxford Shakespeare, ed., Colin Burrow (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
The Dramatic Works of Shakespeare in Seven Volumes, with Two hundred and Thirty Embellishments; A Life of the Poet; The Preface by Dr Johnson; and a Glossarial Index (Chiswick: C. Whittingham, 1814).
The Narrative Poems, The New Penguin Shakespeare, ed., Maurice Evans (London: Penguin, 1989).
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The Poems, A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare, ed., H.E. Rollins (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1938).
The Sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint, The New Penguin Shakespeare, ed., John Kerrigan (London: Penguin, 1986).
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